
I 




Glass. 



Book 



HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, 

IN COMMEMORATION 

OF THE 

ORIGINAL SETTLEMENT 

or 

FARMINGTON, 

IN 1640. 



BY NOAH PORTER, JR. 



HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, 



DELIVERED BY REQUEST, 

BEFORE THE 

CITIZENS OF FARMINGTON, 

NOVEMBER 4, 1840, 
IN COMMEMORATION 



ORIGINAL SETTLEMENT 



ANCIENT TOWN, 



IN 1640. 



BY NOAH PORTER, JR. 



HARTFORD: 
L. SKINNER, PRINTER. 

1841. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST 

OF THE 

COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 






HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 



We have been summoned to this place, not to be daz- 
zled by a splendid but idle pageantry, nor to be excited to 
a factitious enthusiasm, but to contemplate with reverence 
the honored past, and to learn from it the lessons of ad- 
monitory wisdom. The feeling which has brought us hith- 
er is a sacred one. That we instinctively venerate the men 
and principles of ancient days, is itself most honorable to 
our nature. So amiable is this spirit and so generous and 
elevating is its influence ; that we pardon it even when it 
is excessive, and give it leave to magnify that which is 
mean, and to palliate that which plainly deserves reproba- 
tion. We even sympathize with the descendant of a long 
ancestral line, who prides himself that he can trace its ori- 
gin to some rough warrior of olden time, who received his 
extended manor from lands subdued by the Norman con- 
queror, or to some pliant courtier, who largely shared with 
his royal master, in his robbery of the church. 

We, however, ask no such pardon or sympathy, as we 
honor our sires. They are separated from us by too few 
generations, to profit greatly by the distance or the dim- 
ness of antiquity. Their principles and characters stand 
out too distinctly to view, to receive any other than a ra- 
tional homage ; and in their austere presence, none other 
should we dare to give. 

One claim they have upon their descendants, which is 
peculiar. They toiled for us, not as men commonly toil 
for their posterity, in an incidental and necessary way, 



with their eyes mainly fixed on selfish and present gain ; 
but with a most distinct reference to those who were to 
come after them ; in whom they trusted that their spirit 
would ever live, and who upon this soil, would enjoy the 
rich blessings, which their faith beheld in the " good foun- 
dation" of principles and institutions; brought as the ark 
of the covenant by reverent hands and with priestly ado- 
ration, across the western sea. 

Who then were our Fathers ? I ask this question here, 
though it has been so often asked and answered, as to leave 
little opportunity, to cast new light upon their characters 
and history. This occasion however demands that these 
should again be considered ; that the men of this ancient 
town, should for themselves know well the spirit in which 
it was planted, and which . still broods over these valleys, 
wanders up and down these streams, and haunts these 
woods. 

In the splendid reign of the far-famed queen Elizabeth, 
there were gathered in England, the elements of a power- 
ful religious and political party ; the movements of which 
afterwards shook the whole kingdom, maintaining as it did, 
for more than a century, a constant and determined war- 
fare with the maiden queen, and after her with the whole 
Stuart family. It assembled just two hundred years ago 
the long parliament, which wrested from unwilling hands 
the constituent principles of English liberty ; then it burst 
forth in " the great rebellion"; brought Charles I. to the 
block of the executioner, and upheld the usurpation of 
Cromwell, in its glory and substantial profit to the English 
people. After the death of Cromwell and the abdication 
of his honest but incompetent successor, weary of the gov- 
ernment of a divided military faction, fearful of anarchy, 
and yielding to the national impulse which pointed to the 
hereditary successor of the throne, this Puritan party 



-5 

was foremost in the restoration of Charles II. Under his 
thoughtless and corrupt administration it reaped an abun- 
dant harvest of suffering from royal ingratitude, and sorely 
learned the lesson which it afterward turned to so good 
account, that civil and religious rights, to be safe, must be 
secured. Under the despotism and papacy of James II. 
it banished the Stuart family forever from the throne ; tri- 
umphantly seated upon it William, the Prince of Orange, 
and wrought the great English revolution, when in 1688, 
the principles of English Liberty were declared by English 
Law. 

The moving occasion of this party, and its most active 
influence, was Non-conformity to the Church of England. 
At the accession of Elizabeth to the throne, she proceeded 
to re-organize the church, which had been reformed by her 
father and brother, but cloven down by her sister Mary. 
She found herself at once embarrassed by scruples among 
many of the choicest Protestant teachers, as to the lawful- 
ness of certain usages, and dresses or habits, retained from 
the ceremonial of the Romish church. These scruples had 
been of long existence, and had gathered strength in the 
minds of teachers and people, who in their exile during the 
persecution of Mary, had been attracted by the beauty of 
simpler forms of worship ; and revolted from rites and robes 
that in their view partook so largely of a popish character, 
and were attended by so many associations of popish su- 
perstition. 

Against these scruples she steadily contended, for though 
a Protestant queen, and regarded as the bulwark of the 
Protestant interest, she was nevertheless determined to 
have Protestantism ordered after her own fashion, and to 
make the Reformed church of England, in the splendor and 
uniformity of its ceremonial, a fit appendage to her queenly 
glory. She was hardly persuaded to go as far as she did 
in the way of reformation. It was only at the instigation 



and by the perseverance of the clergy, that she consented 
to the destruction of images in the churches. In her own 
chapel, she retained a crucifix during most of her reign. 
She was never reconciled to the marriage of the clergy, 
and the statute of her sister against it was not repealed till 
after her death. The Bishops and clergy married by her 
connivance, or rather her ungracious permission, and their 
children were treated by the law as illegitimate. 

Upon the question of uniformity, the most eminent of her 
clergy were with few exceptions at first against the queen. 
Though they themselves conformed, they would gladly 
have abolished the usages complained of, and thus have 
conciliated so many learned and godly ministers to the 
church. The first Convocation of the clergy decided 
against the abolition of the usages by one vote alone. 

Her Privy council were against her. The majority of 
those men whose names to the present day are names hon- 
ored for sagacious and dignified wisdom, were at first oppo- 
sed to the queen, and many continued through her reign, 
the ineffectual arbiters of peace between her majesty and 
so many valuable subjects. Lord Bacon has left in writing 
his testimony in relation to this painful dispute, in his " Ad- 
vertisement touching the controversies of the church of 
England"; a testimony which while it reproves the faults of 
the Non-conformists, must affix forever to her majesty and 
the Bishops, the name of having sacrificed the dictates of 
wisdom to the stubbornness of will. 

Her Parliament were also often opposed. Through the 
whole of her reign, with an occasional exception, a large 
number of the commons, arrayed themselves against her 
majesty, upon the questions of the church, till she was at 
last so vexed by their pertinacity, that she rarely summon- 
ed them together. 

But Elizabeth persisted and prevailed. As the conse- 
quence, the church was not more, but it was less at peace. 



The party opposed, increased in numbers, and in the bold- 
ness of its attacks upon the church, and the church with 
the queen in the severity of their penal inflictions. As the 
result of the whole, she bequeathed to her successor, a 
powerful and organized party, embittered by persecution, 
and prepared to contend with power arrayed against them. 
At first it was a religious party ; afterwards, through ne- 
cessity, it appeared and made itself felt in the Parliament, 
as a political body.* To accomplish her will, in the mat- 
ters of the church, the queen ventured upon violent exten- 
sions of royal authority, and high assumptions of arbitrary 
power. For this end, she trampled on the privileges of 
parliament and the rights of Englishmen. Doing this, she 
aroused against herself, the old and stubborn spirit of Eng- 
lish liberty, and enlisted many on the side of the Puritans, 
who cared little for their non-conforming scruples. 

Thus it was that the question of English liberty, was 
connected with the question of religious usages and disci- 
pline ; thus did it happen that her successor found to his 
astonishment, that "there was such a thing as a Parlia- 
ment." The outset of his administration, was signalized 
by the hope, on the part of the Non-conformists, that he 
would favor their views. On his way from Scotland to the 
throne, he was presented with a petition for the removal of 
the abuses, signed by nearly one thousand ministers. His 
disposition soon became manifest. At the close of the con- 
ference at Hampton court, a conference, the record of 
which is a decisive testimony to the brutality of the king, 
he uttered the remarkable words, "If this is all your party 
hath to say, I will make them conform themselves, or else 
I will harrie them out of the land." He was as good as 
his word. Notwithstanding the advice of Lord Bacon, 
presented a second time to the throne, advice left still on 

* Note A. 



record, he persisted in his most offensive and insolent op- 
pression, till toward the end of his reign, the emigration to 
New England first began. 

Thus far I have traced the history of parties in England, 
that a just idea may be formed of the character of the men 
who planted this land. 

They were of a great and growing party, embracing 
men of all classes, and of various religious and political 
principles, the soul of which was grave and earnest piety 
toward God, a hearty reverence for his word, and a de- 
termined purpose to hold high the sacred convictions of 
reason and conscience — never to dishonor them by coward- 
ly or courtly compliances to dead power ; though it filled 
a throne, or spoke terror in the Star chamber. 

It was the party of the middling class throughout the 
kingdom; of the men of intelligence, of worth, of substantial 
though not of princely wealth, including not the nobles 
truly, but many of the gentry in the agricultural districts. 
It was the party also of the manufacturers and the mer- 
chants, the men who have given England its princely 
wealth, and London its splendid magnificence. In the 
civil wars, the city of London was ever with the Parlia- 
ment against the king, and by its present aid and its abun- 
dant resources, the Parliament and the people triumphed. 
It embraced many hundreds of ministers, confessed by all 
to have been learned, godly and eloquent men, whose influ- 
ence over their flocks, through the pre-eminence of their 
qualifications for their work, made the contest ever so une- 
qual and laborious to the king, the court and the hierarchy. 

When from this party, thousands emigrated to this soil, 
and planted their feet upon these shores, there was stricken 
off from the English nation, an integral portion of its wor- 
thiest population, representing its substantial interests and 
the several constituents of its real strength and glory. 
They did not come, a band of needy adventurers, driven 



out by the necessity of a. superabundant population, and 
the scarcity of food and employment ; whose first care, is 
for the necessities of nature, whose next anxiety is for 
wealth, and who leave society, government, literature and 
religion to grow up as they can, the last want of a genera- 
tion grown squalid by the neglect of culture, and barbarous 
in the midst of material wealth. They came from no such 
necessity as this, but for the sake of institutions did they 
come, — institutions enshrined in their best affections, made 
sacred by conscientious reverence, and doubly dear by 
suffering and trial. These it was their object to enjoy and 
make sure ; and to transport them to a secure refuge, they 
were willing to go to regions most distant, if thus they could 
remove them beyond the reach of their foes, — to shores 
that were cold and inhospitable, if their ruggedness might 
repel the visitations of these unwelcome guests. 

Never had the world seen a sight like this before ; learn- 
ing, piet} r , culture, rank and wealth, going out from the 
abodes of civilized life, to lay the foundations of a colony ; 
a colony ever proverbial before, as being the last resort of 
the needy, or the tempting prize of the adventurous, — a 
colony planted not by the poor or the rapacious, but by fit 
representatives from every class of society in the finest na- 
tion upon earth, except indeed the idlers who sparkled on 
its surface, and the ignorant and vicious, who crawled in 
the slime of its dregs. 

Faith in God was the law of their characters, and the 

soul of their enterprises. This faith was not a general and 

distant recognition of his perfections, but it was a familiar 

though reverent acquaintance with his glory ; not a cold 

assent to his agency in all things, but a heartfelt conviction 

that his finger moves every event, and orders the result of 

every undertaking. The piety of the Puritans however, 

though a distinguishing was not the one distinctive feature 

which made them what they were. Piety as stedfast and 
o 



10 

mart} r r-like, had dwelt among the secluded Waldenses, 
and sustained them by simple trust in God, in the dark 
hour of their threatened extinction. Piety of as seraphic 
fervor, had fired the ardent Huguenot in his unequal con- 
test. The piety of the Puritans, while it was affectionate 
and believing, was intellectual, philosophic, standing upon 
truth and principle, as upon a rock. It was piety anima- 
ting the English mind, with its peculiarly reflective charac- 
ter, and its stubborn adhesion to its convictions, against 
power and place, when this mind awoke as by an electric 
impulse, to a knowledge of its dignity, and the high purpose 
which God had commissioned it to accomplish. It was 
piety exacting the conscientious fulfillment of individual 
and daily duties, and not content with these, but daring to 
test by the word of God "the tenure of kings and magis- 
trates," the foundations of church and state, and to demand 
in the name of God, that these should be ordered by the 
principles of his word, and should act in harmony with 
that sublime government, which included them all. Most 
of all, the church engaged their most earnest solicitude and 
tasked their severest inquiries. The state the}' left as they 
found it. They prescribed no form of civil government as 
divine. They entered the lists of civil strife and acted as 
politicians, not to overthrow the monarchy of England, but 
to make her king the head of a purer church ; not to strip 
him of his hereditary rights, but to secure to his subjects, 
their hereditary privileges. They honored the state, as the 
auxiliary and patron of the church, having its own sphere, 
and its own duties, but these coincident with the object of 
the church. 

Besides the discipline of law, the discipline of the family, 
and the discipline of the school, were esteemed of essential 
importance. A child uncontrolled at home, and untrained 
at school, was in their view a burden on the earth, a curse 



11 

to the commonwealth, and a hopeless subject for the church ; 
a heathen in a Christian land. 

The church of God, with its Sabbaths of consecrated 
rest, its teaching and pastoral Ministry, its active Brother- 
hood, its Schoolmaster in every hamlet, its domestic Priest 
in every household, its Magistracy "just men ruling in the 
fear of God," all in harmony with the principles of the 
divine government ; this was the soul, the animating prin- 
ciple of all their movements, the bright result of every 
enterprise. It was not agriculture, with its plenteous har- 
vests, not commerce with its golden prizes, not adventure 
with its romantic incidents and its barbaric spoils, not 
civil independence with its ambitious designs, not these 
first, and the church and its adjuncts second, not these 
second and incidental to the church, but the Church all in 
all. 

We need not contend, that their views of the church 
were scriptural and true, to give to men bound across the 
Atlantic on an errand and for an aim like this, the heartiest 
homage of our fervent admiration ; nor need we pronounce 
them faultless men, to set them apart for our honor, as men 
whom the earth can match with none like them, in the 
justness of their views of man's truest interests, and their 
self-denying wisdom to advance them. 
W Behold the passengers of the Mayflower, not daring to 
land upon the shores of Cape Cod in a dreary winter's 
day, till they had institutions to land upon the shores before 
them, under the shade of which they might sit down and 
dwell. Where are the men but they, who shivering at un- 
accustomed cold, disappointed of their expected harbor, 
defrauded by treachery, and vexed by delay, would 
crowd into a narrow cabin, to form themselves into a state, 
and would refuse to disembark till they could land in the 
dignity of an organized commonwealth ? Behold the newly 
planted colonists of Massachusetts and New Haven, with 



12 

dwellings not yet built, their goods hardly unpacked and 
in disorder around them, the simplest comforts of life not 
yet provided, caring first of all that the church of God 
should be set up, its ministry set apart, their maintenance 
and studious leisure provided for; and then read the record 
of a similar proceeding within the limits of this ancient 
town, and say whether there was not a lofty aim in the 
minds of these men, far removed from the vulgar cares of 
common men, which puts to shame the neglect of rich and 
established governments. "In the first settlement of New 

- England," Johnson observes, "when the people judged 
their number competent to obtain a minister, they then 
surely seated themselves and not before, it being as un- 
natural for a right New England man to live without an 
able ministry, as for a smith to work his iron without fire." 
See on the other hand, the reforming Henry VIII. lay 
his rapacious and bloody hands upon the lands and reve- 
nues of the church, setting aside the lion's share for him- 
self, and dividing the remainder upon profligate favorites 
and pliant courtiers, leaving his people the meanwhile in 
their barbarism, without teachers, without a ministry, 
without the word of God in their hands, many of them 
without the knowledge of letters, by which to read it, or- 

v dering by statute, "that the Bible shall not be read in 
English in any church. No women or artificer's apprenti- 
ces, journeymen, serving-men, husbandmen or laborers, 
shall read the New Testament in English." 

Look at the splendid queen his daughter, keeping bisho- 
prics vacant for years, that she might appropriate their 
revenues to her private use, and depriving her people of 
their ablest, most learned and pious ministers. Look at 

m England at this day, able to provide hundreds of millions 
for foreign wars, but never yet able to educate her chil- 
dren, and as a consequence, resting with all her glory 
upon a heaving and angry volcano. 



1,3 

N/ Then look at these men of lofty souls with the sagacious 
forecast of philosophers, and the discerning inspiration of 
prophets, spending their all to purchase a soil on which 
they might plant learning and religion, and these men not 
philosophers, not prophets, but the majority of them plain, 
but high minded men. 

So did the Puritans think, so did they act ; and in circum- 
stances in which the noblest of ordinary men, defer and put 

N aside their plans of public usefulness, through the pressure 
of present necessity. Such men could not have been low- 
minded and factious men, afflicted with an unhappy nar- 
rowness of spirit and borne forward by the impulses of a 
fierce fanaticism. We cannot be mistaken ; we know that 
they inhaled the pure and bracing air of lofty principles, / 
and saw with penetrating and sagacious insight that no 
society of men can prosper except as its well-being springs 
from the true culture of its members ; except as it aims to 
make them live as immortal beings, that they may fill well 
their station in time. Where, among ancient legislators or 
modern statesmen, is the man, who has understood so well 
as they, wherein consists the true glory of a common- 
wealth ? 

v To think is well ; to act is better ; to frame a just concep- 
tion and give birth to a lofty ideal, argues true greatness ; 
to give it being in real life evinces greatness of a loftier 
character. The Puritans did both. They were not con- 
tent to entertain their notions in cloistered seclusion ; they 
must make them live in actual institutions. And at what 
expense? At the sacrifice of all that man holds dear. 
For whom ? Not for themselves, but for those who were to 
come after them. They were content to toil, the painful 
builders of strong foundations, not expecting to dwell under 
the finished edifice, but satisfied, if so be that they laid the 
foundations well, to dwell under rude and hasty coverings 
cast across the unfinished walls. 



14 

Nor were the Puritans enthusiasts, who dreamed golden 
dreams of hidden mines, and spent their lives and estates 
in the fruitless effort to find them ; who were so eager after 
bright ideals, and impossible perfection, that they left all 
real good behind. They were in the most appropriate 
sense, practical men, avoiding impossible plans, and know- 
ing well, how their plans could be secured. With views 
of the independence of the local churches, and their self 
sufficiency for government, which gained the confident 
prediction of their speedy dissolution, they held as fast to 
the opinion, that no church can prosper without due subor- 
dination and a just respect to its appointed officers ; while 
they acknowledged no man a minister of the church, whom 
the church did not elect, yet when a minister, they yielded 
him abundant honor. The civil liberty which was the ob- 
ject of their enthusiastic love, and their painful and bloody 
combats, was freedom from oppression, not from the re- 
straints which the being of the commonwealth demands. 
Their views of the authority of the magistracy were well 
expressed by the elder Winthrop. 

"It is }^ou yourselves," said he to those who had elected 
him, "who have called us to this office, and being called 
by you, we have an authority from God, in way of an ordi- 
nance, such as hath the image of God eminently stamped 
upon it, the contempt and violation whereof hath been vin- 
dicated with examples of divine vengeance." " There is a 
two-fold libert} r , natural (I mean as our nature is now cor- 
rupt,) and civil and federal. The first is common to man 
with beasts and other creatures." 

"If you stand for your natural and corrupt liberties, and 
will do what is good in your own eyes, you will not endure 
the least weight ©f authority, but will murmur and oppose, 
and be always striving to shake off that yoke ; but if you 
will be satisfied to enjoy such civil and lawful liberties, 
such as Christ allows you, then will you quietly and cheer- 



15 

fully submit unto that authority which is set over you, in all 
administrations of it for your good."* 

Knowing that the church and state had no artificial sup- 
ports, they were careful to give the highest efficiency to 
their real strength. To their magistrates and ministers 
they rendered the most punctilious reverence and an almost 
superstitious awe. The enemies of their institutions say, 
that this reverence was a thing of custom, learned in a 
ro} r al government and among priestly orders. We say, it 
was itself a religion, a sacred principle maintained in ready 
willingness, and enforced with even an excessive scrupu- 
losity. Says Robinson, in his pastoral letter to his flock, 
removing to Plymouth, "and lastly, whereas you are to 
become a body politic, using among } T ourselves civil gov- 
ernment, and are not furnished with any of especial emi- 
nency above the rest, to be chosen by you into office of 
government, let your wisdom and godliness appear not 
only in choosing such persons as do entirely love and will 
promote the common good, but also in yielding unto them 
all due honor and obedience in their lawful administration, 
not beholding in them the ordinance of their persons but 
God's ordinance for your good, not being like the foolish 
multitude who more honor the gay coat than either the 
virtuous mind of the man, or the glorious ordinance of the 
Lord ; but you know better things and that the image of the 
Lord's power and authority which the magistrate beareth 
is honorable in how mean persons soever."t This scru- 
pulous honor to lawful authority, with their reverence for 
learning, their anxious regard for popular instruction and 
family discipline, show that they attached to the form of 
institutions no fond or enthusiastic hopes, but guarded 
them by the provisions of practical wisdom. 

* Winthrop, by Savage, II. 228, 229, 230. 

t Baylies' History of New Plymouth, p. 22, 30. 



16 

Look also at their sons. No where upon the earth is to 
be found a population more marked by practical discern- 
ment and genuine sagacity, than the sons of New England 
are and ever have been ; striking boldly, but always surely, 
kindling often into an enthusiasm for truth and right, not 
unworthy of their fathers, and with it uniting the shrewdest 
insight into the substantial interests of real and every day 
life. The fathers of such sons, were no dreamers of splen- 
did impossibilities, of perfection to come by institutions, 
or which was to reward a dreamer's hopes. 

Such was the public virtue of the fathers of New Eng- 
land; such was their regard for the institutions of law, of 
learning and of religion ; so wise in its judgments, so self- 
sacrificing in its labors, so sagacious and successful in its 
practical workings. We separate it from their peculiar 
opinions, we choose not to abate from it, by their human 
weaknesses, or private foibles. Before this commanding 
excellence, we rise into an ardent and honest enthusiasm. 
We are awed in the austere presence of its single hearted 

purity. 

We owe this honor to the men who cared for us, we 
owe it to the institutions whose broad and deep founda- 
tions they laid in sorrow yet in cheerful hope, we owe it to 
the supernatural wonders wrought by their faith in God, 
that this one excellence should be vindicated from every 
base and envious attack, that it should be guarded with a 
jealous affection by the present generation, and transmitted 
as a sacred legacy to those who are to live after us. 

So obvious is this characteristic excellence of our fathers, 
and so remarkable have been its results, that few are found 
who will not render to it their praise. 

Those who would do them dishonor are forced to look 
in another direction, and hence they fasten upon other fea- 
tures, by painting which in false and heightened colors, 
and dressing them in distorted shapes, they render impos- 



17 

sible the veneration of their descendants, by first exciting 
against them their contemptuous laughter. 

The impression is industriously diffused that they were 
very good, but also very mistaken men ; that their merits 
were great, it must be allowed, but their excesses were 
greater, that their virtues would call forth our reverent 
homage, were we not so diverted by their stiff-backed 
scrupulosity, their lengthened prayers and their solemn 
and ridiculous gravity. 

It is therefore proper on every occasion like the present 
to aim to obtain a correct impression of the men as they 
were, and to notice the points objected most strongly 
against them. 

" The Puritans were gloomy, severe and stern." In- 
deed! where learned you that? From godless and pro- 
fane men, who having the least possible sympathy with 
their pious aspirations and their self denying faith, would 
of course be repelled by their apparent moroseness and 
gloom ; who having little taste for prayer, would think any 
prayers unreasonably long; and who being libertines in 
religion and politics, would think discipline in the church 
and state, a grievance and a wrong. From their profes- 
sed satirists, who could easily find in the excesses of the 
weak and ignorant, in fermenting times, the portrait of the 
whole best suited to their purpose. From the songs and 
toasts of bacchanalian cavaliers, who had very cogent rea- 
sons, in the carouse of the alehouse, to forget the shame of 
defeat, and to drown the remembrance in their merry 
laughter at old Noll and his canting round-heads. 

And yet it is true that the Puritans were severe and 
stern, and they had a stem work to do. So have been all 
the great men of the earth, who have been known as re- 
formers and martyrs and patriots. So were the Romans as 
they drove the iron car of their dominion to and fro through 
the earth. But who does not forget it in their glory ? If 



18 

to be strongly set on a purpose, to be unmoved by the 
smiles of flattery, the seduction of courts, and the terror of 
vindictive power, if to be and to do this is to be stern, then 
all virtue is of a stern and stubborn temper, in the eyes of 
the men who prefer to yield rather than to strive. 
V The older men among the settlers of New England were 
born in the reign of Elizabeth. From their first acquaint- 
ance with the world, they had felt that "the times were out 
of joint." In the early exercise of their infantile percep- 
tions, they had seen a serious and painful anxiety pervade 
the paternal roof, and sit with its heavy and unnatural 
pressure upon those countenances from which they sought 
a smile. As they grew older they learned the cause. 
They were told of the sufferings of their parents for con- 
science sake, how that they had incurred the displeasure 
of their queen, and had been forced to differ from a church 
which they loved; that to worship God as duty bade them, 
they must steal abroad by night to meet a few of their 
friends, who thought and suffered as did they. At the 
morning and evening prayer, they heard the saving hand 
of God invoked in words hardly whispered for fear, which 
caused their hearts to thrill with an ominous terror. In 
their youth and earlier manhood, they had suffered under 
the brutal and unfeeling James, who added insult to wrong, 
and coarse contempt to violated rights. Now and then, 
the bishop's court would make its appearance, and he who 
should have come, if he came at all, in apostolic love, and 
for apostolic watchfulness ; is represented by his lay-chan- 
cellor, to distrain their goods, and imprison their persons. 
Urged by this strong pressure, they leave their homes for- 
ever, perhaps at midnight, by stealth, with that portion of 
their estates which could be converted into money. 

Under this necessity, weighing upon them at every hour ; 
they had no resource but in God, no relief but in the con- 
scious rectitude of their motives. Hence did they gaze 



19 

upon the countenance of truth with an earnestness so ab- 
sorbed, that they forgot to care for the graces of life and 
its lighter and more frivolous accomplishments, in the 
severer joys of sufferers for the truth. No wonder that 
men so nurtured should have been serious men. They 
were "warriors from their youth, warriors for principle, girt 
in earnest strife with England in her pride and power. 

But he that supposes that these men, thus tried, and 
forced by the sternness of their lot to an unnatural severi- 
ty of temper, knew not the softening presence of domestic 
love, or the sweet charities of social life ; that in those 
days of dark and frowning severity, there was neither the 
courtesy of accomplished culture in man, nor aught of the 
refining grace of woman's loveliness, has need to acquaint 
himself with things as they were. Let him read the histo- 
ry of the Lady Arbella, sister to the Earl of Lincoln, who 
came "from a paradise of plenty and pleasure" "into a 
wilderness of wants:" and whose name was uttered with 
fond affection, by many a Puritan mother to her admiring 
daughters, as of one who was enabled by the grace of God, 
to sacrifice her home, her rank, and her accustomed 
pleasures, that she might cast in her lot with his suffering 
church. Let him learn to reverence the more than Roman 
virtues of the elder Winthrop, and to delight in the memo- 
ry of his accomplished son ; the philosopher, the courtier 
and Christian : or let him read the history, and learn to 
admire the virtues of Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, the noblest 
woman of her century, Puritan though she was, and the 
wife of a regicide. 

"But the Puritans were quaint and old-fashioned, their, 
manners were formal and precise, their scriptural allusions 
were forced and unnatural." True, they were old-fashion- 
ed and quaint, and so was Queen Elizabeth, and Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh, and Jeremy Taylor. It is forgotten by those 
who are offended at the Puritans for this reason, that all the 



20 



men of their day had the same peculiarities, which would 
not suit our tastes, and that much which makes them ob- 
jects of ridicule, applies with equal propriety to those who 
are admired at the Puritans' expense. 

"But they were scrupulous beyond all reason. They 
made things trivial in themselves, to be of the weightiest 
moment, and separated from their church and country for 
reasons which an enlightened understanding would have 
thought of only to despise." Let it be granted in the 
argument that they were excessively scrupulous in the 
original grounds of their dissent ; they were not more so in 
asking a harmless indulgence than were the bishops and 
queen in insisting that things so indifferent should be re- 
garded with the most scrupulous and frivolous uniformit}^. 
But let it ever be remembered that they were not rejected 
by the Puritans, as things in themselves of importance, but 
as fraught with dangerous and idolatrous associations, as 
taken from the ceremonial of a corrupt religion.* In peri- 
ods distinguished by the earnest strife of principles, dis- 
cerning and heroic men are always scrupulous, for they 
see great principles in small matters. So thought Hamp- 
den when he refused the ship-money, though a trifling tax. 
So judged our fathers, when taxed tea, and stamped paper, 
were odious in their eyes. Had the Puritans stood up for 
duty and right with a scrupulosity less jealous, the com- 
mons of England might still have been under the feet of 
her king, and the name of free America had never been 
known. 

We smile as we read that when the first military com- 
pany of Boston petitioned to be made a corporation, "the 
council, considering (from the example of the Praetorian 

* If any one wishes to know the graver and more serious reasons, which made 
the Non-conformists disposed to sever from the church, let him read Baxter's ac- 
count of the state of religion in the reign of James I. and remember that 
Baxter washardlv a Nonconformist. 



21 

bands among the Romans and the Templars,) how dan- 
gerous it might be to erect a standing authority of military 
men, which might easily overtop the civil power, thought 
fit to stop it betimes." And yet this thoughtful care was 
wise. To a care so scrupulous in laying aright their first 
foundations, to their cautious correctness, in ordering their 
small beginnings, do we owe all that we love and cherish 
in our own New England, as she is within her ancient seat, 
and as she has extended her influence far away to the 
west. 

"But they restricted the elective franchise to those who / 
were members of the church." They would have been 
guilty of miserable and short-sighted foil}" had they not 
done so. Hither had they come far off to a wilderness, for 
a single purpose, "to maintain and preserve the liberty 
and purity of the gospel." Had they opened wide their 
doors to all who had chosen to enter, what security had 
they, as soon as their first perils were past, that they would 
not be out-numbered and out-voted by their most bitter 
foes ? — that their churches would not be destroyed, and the 
object of their removal be defeated forever ? Alarmed as 
they were lest the tyranny which had driven them from the 
shores of England, should extend its arm across the Atlan- 
tic;* laboring under fear lest the civil power might fall 
into the hands of the followers of some new and pestilent 
heresy ; or lest dissolute and profane men who were con- 
tinually haunting and vexing them by their presence, 
should, if admitted to the oath of freemen, swarm upon 
them like the locusts of Egypt, they did wisely to take the 

* These fears were not without reason. In 1635 a commission was granted 
to several lords, with Laud at their head, to regulate the civil and ecclesiastical 
affairs of New England. For several years the colonies were in a state of 
alarmed suspense, lest their charters should be taken from them, and the church 
of England should persecute them for non-conformity, even on these distant 
shores. 



22 

only effectual method within their power, to secure the 
government of the colonies true to the great object for 
which the colonies were planted. 

By a similar provision has Protestant England secured 
the Established church and the Protestant succession, in 
the Corporation and Test acts, both of which require the 
participation of the sacrament according to the rites of the 
National church. There is this difference in favor of the / 
fathers of New England. They repealed the provision 
within a few years after it was made, and as soon as they 
saw that it was safe so to do, while the acts of the English 
Parliament remained on the statute book till 1S28. 
\, "But did not they banish and hang the Quakers?" 
They did. They forbade them to enter within their 
bounds, as dangerous men, who in their frenzied delusion, 
were bent upon the destruction of those ordinances in 
church and state which God had made most sacred, and 
which were the objects of the Puritan's holiest care. 
When they came in the face of threatened death, they 
came at their peril, and a few suffered the extremity of the 
law. While we defend not this mistaken severity of our 
fathers, we forget not that they came hither, not to establish 
a state, but to find refuge for a church; and that when they 
had found a hiding place in the wilderness, they wished to 
keep it to themselves and to debar intrusion. Had the 
world been open to them, they would deserve a harsher 
judgment. But situated as they were, a beleaguered for- 
tress, in the midst of mighty foes, we need not wonder that 
they adopted the modes of self defence, that were common 
in their day, and harshly repelled those whom they looked 
upon as their most dangerous enemies. The necessities of 
war are pressing and the laws of war are severe. Besides, 
the Quakers as they appeared in New England, often 
grossly outraged the decencies of life, and at this day 
would be punished as disturbers of the public peace. 



23 

"But were they not intolerant?" In one respect they>/ 
were more tolerant than the other churches of their day, 
and more so than some of this day. Though they held fast 
to their own views of church government, as scriptural and 
apostolic, yet they did not appropriate to themselves the 
exclusive title of "the church;" but freely extended it to 
all those communions, who held the essentials of the faith 
and order of the gospel. To the church of England under 
the authority of bishops ; to the church of Scotland under 
elders and a general assembly ; to the Lutheran and Re- 
formed churches upon the continent ; they extended the 
name of churches, as standing on the foundation of proph- 
ets and apostles : upon them all did they implore the 
blessing of God. In regard to this point they deserve 
more honor than they often receive. 

It is true that they supported religion by law, but unlike 
most religious establishments, as soon as those of other 
communions came within their limits in any considerable 
number, the rate collected by the state, of a dissenter from 
its church, was given to the church to which the individual V 
belonged. If there was no such society within a conven- 
ient distance for his attendance upon public worship, it 
was given to the church supported by the state. Not so 
kindly, at this clay, does the National church of England 
treat those who dissent from her communion. 

" But did they not put to death men and women for-/ 
witchcraft in Salem ?" They did, and Sir Matthew Hale 
did the same but a few years previous, and the printed 
account of the trial and condemnation of these persons at 
his court, had been circulated and read in New England, 
before the unhappy event in Salem. Not many years be- 
fore, hundreds perished under the charge of witchcraft in 
France and Germany, and sixty years after two individu- 
als were drowned on suspicion of witchcraft, within twenty 
miles of London. The error in New England was soon 



24 

discovered. It was frankly acknowledged and bewailed 
with bitter tears by Judge Sewall, and many of the acting 
jurors. It was never received by many even in the day of 
its most extensive prevalence. 
s. Had our fathers fallen into no errors, they had not been 
men. But we err not when we say that in every point they 
were far before the age in which they lived, and in some 
particulars, the present age might with profit take lessons 
at their feet. They committed themselves, with fearless 
confidence, to the guidance of truth ; safely and surely did 
she conduct them in the way of the noblest wisdom. 



Two hundred years ago the soil on which we stand, 
^ first passed into English hands. Five years before, the 
valley of the Connecticut at the east had first been occupi- 
ed, and the three towns that lay along our ancient borders, 
viz. Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor, had now be- 
come important settlements. The year previous, (1639,) 
they had formed themselves into a commonwealth, and 
elected their magistrates and governor. It was natural 
that this infant state should seek to enlarge its borders, 
that it might invite to its green abode far off in the western 
wilderness, the emigrants who were then crowding the 
eastern plantations. With their accustomed enterprise, the 
planters had explored the country around. Some daring 
men from Hartford, incited by vague reports of the na- 
tives, or led by a desire to know what lay beyond the hills 
which they saw to the west, had wandered to their brow, 
and emerging from the forest had descried the green valley 
which stretched itself at their feet ; an open country through 
which the Tunxis led its silvery line, from the borders of 
which ascended the smokes of the Indian settlements. In 
eager excitement they returned to tell of a newly discov- 
ered meadow, the richest prize to those early colonists. It 



was the fame of the fertile low land upon the Connecticut, 
which had first led them from Newtown, because " it was 
well stored with meadow," which in the words of a chron- 
icler of those days, "is in great esteem with the people of 
New England, by reason their winters are very lono-." 
Cattle, ever in a new country of the highest value, were 
then scarce, and high in price, and it was only upon the 
natural meadows along the streams, that their winter stores 
could be readily gathered. To Connecticut therefore, 
they came with a large herd of cattle, intending to devote 
themselves to the breeding of cattle as their chief occupa- 
tion. It was natural that they should fix their eye upon this 
new valley as soon as it was known, and take measures to 
possess its meadow. In January, 1639, " a committee from 
the three towns was appointed to view those parts by Uncas 
[Tunxis] Sepos, for some enlargement of accommodation 
there." In 1640,* the conditions for the planting of Tunxis v 
are concluded, and the settlement began. A few families 
from Hartfordf lead the way, construct their dwellings on 
the upland, and select or purchase large portions of the 
meadow. Many also who did not change their residence, 
possessed themselves of valuable farms in the new planta- 
tion. It was the first and only off-shoot or colony from the 
church of Thomas Hooker, and from the first enjoyed his 
fostering care, as it was afterwards matured under the 
ministry of his sons. 

The number of actual settlers at first was small, but it 
gradually increased till in 1645,f Tunxis received itsy 
present name, and became a taxable town, with "the like 
liberties as the other towns upon the river for making 
orders among themselves." Its first tax in 1645 was .£10. 
We can more readily describe than realize the scene that 
presented itself to the few settlers who separated them- 

* Note B. t Note c/ \ Note D. 



26 

selves from the flourishing towns on the Connecticut, and 
had come here to dwell alone. Between them and their 
homes lay a continuous forest. They were in the midst of 
a large and warlike tribe of Indians, the largest of any of 
the tribes who bordered the Connecticut.* The huts of the 
natives are scattered here and there, while a large and cen- 
tral settlement appeared on the east bank of the river, where 
now stands their monument, f the silent and the only witness 
that they ever were here. Across the hills upon the south- 
east, there was encamped upon the Mattabeset, a portion 
of another tribe, J from which this river had its name. 
Much of the descending slope from the mountain, along 
which the street now runs, was more or less densely wood- 
ed ; in some places it was moist and even marshy. At its 
feet lay the open meadow. Beyond is the western forest, 
its border darkening the western hills quite down to their 
base, the terror of the Indian and the white man ; for along 
its unknown tract for hundreds of miles roamed the dreaded 
Mohawks, to whom all the tribes in this region were tribu- 
tary. The Mohawks were fierce and warlike, the terror of 
all the New England tribes. From the banks of the river 
which bears their name, they roved hither and thither upon 
their errand of conquest ; now surprising a native settle- 
ment upon the Sound, or breaking in on a defenceless tribe 
on the branches of the Connecticut. Now and then there 
would issue from the forest an ancient herald or two, who 
would go from hamlet to hamlet, to collect the exacted 
tribute. Wo to the tribe or the individual who refused. 
The terror of the Mohawk rendered the presence of the 
English desirable, and disposed the Indians in all this re- 
gion to a peaceable demeanor. 

Under these circumstances the settlement began. From 
the pass in the mountain through which runs the present 

* So says Pres. Stiles. t Note E. } Note F. 



road to Hartford, to the original meeting house lot, lots of 
five acres were laid out for dwellings ; those along the 
main street were bounded west by the river bank, and 
were divided by the street ; the houses being at first erect- 
ed on its western side. South of this the lots were laid out 
in larger or smaller divisions, still bounded west upon the 
river. As new settlers came in they received lots as the 
gift of the town, and also by purchase from the older propri- 
etors. In the year 1655,* fifteen years from the date of the 
original settlement, the number of rateable persons in the 
town was forty-six, and the grand list of their estates was 
,£5,519, while the number of rateable persons in Hartford 
w r as one hundred and seventy-seven, and the sum of their 
estates was £19,609. 

During the first sixty } r ears the village was gradually in- 
creased, till in 1700 it is supposed to have consisted of 
nearly as many houses as it does at the present time. 

In the year 1672, thirty-two }^ears after the date of the 
original settlement, the proprietors of the town, at that 
time eighty-fourt in number, took possession of the land 
within the limits of the town, and ordered a division on the 
following principles. 

They measured from the Round Hill in the meadow, 
three miles to the north, two miles sixty-four rods to the 
east, five miles thirty-two rods to the south, and two miles 
to the west. The lands within a parallelogram terminating 
in these lines, were called the reserved lands, large portions 
of which had already been taken up, and the remainder was 
reserved for "town commons, home lots, pastures and 
pitches, convenient for the inhabitants," and a common 
field enclosing the meadows ; all without these lands was 
surve} r ed and divided to the eighty-four proprietors, ac- 
cording to their property as shown in their lists for taxa- 

* Note G. t Note H. 



2S 

tion, with a double portion for Mr. Hooker, and a various 
increase for all those whose estates ranged from 10 to ,£70. 
The surveys and divisions in the western section of the 
town were made first, by dividing the whole into six divis- 
ions, of a mile in width, including the highways between, 
and running eleven miles from north to south. Each of 
these tiers were divided according to the estate of each, by 
lines, so that each man had lots a mile in extent from east 
to west, and varying in width according to his property. 
The division of the other portions of the town was conduct- 
ed in very much the same manner. 

The surveys were not completed till the year 172S, and 
they constitute the basis of all the titles to land within the 
towns that have been severed from this. 

In 1GS5, the year of the accession of James II., on 
application to the Legislature of the State, a patent was 
granted, confirming in a formal manner, and by legal 
phrase, to the proprietors of the town, the tract originally 
granted in 1645.* At this time the colonists were greatly 
alarmed at the prospect of royal encroachments upon their 
chartered rights, and the formal confirmation of the char- 
ter of this town was dictated by their fears, as a necessary 
security against threatened danger. 

The land on the Mattabeset river early attracted the 
attention of its owners as a desirable place for a new loca- 
tion. Richard Seymour with others commenced the settle- 
ment at the Great Swamp, eight miles distant from the 
parent town. The time when the first dwelling was erect- 
ed is not precisely known.f 

" The Seamor-fort" was made of palisades sixteen feet 
in length, set upright in the earth and sharpened at the top. 

* This patent was founded on the charter of Connecticut, granted by 
Charles II. 

1 1 find no reason to suppose it earlier than 1675 or 1680. 



29 

Within this fort the inhabitants retired at night for protec- 
tion from the numerous Indians. 

The first well which they excavated still remains, and so 
also do the relics of the plank which they split from the 
logs for the purpose of flooring their dwellings. In the 
year 1712, after they were made a separate society, and 
when their first minister was ordained, they numbered 
fourteen families. 

In 1673, in consequence of their acquaintance with the 
interval lands in Matetacocke or Mattetuck, a number of 
the inhabitants of Farmington petitioned the assembly to 
appoint a committee, to view the location, with reference 
to its fitness for a plantation. Out of this movement origin- 
ated the settlement of Waterbury, in 1677, which may be 
considered a colony from this town. 

The relations of the settlers with the Tunxis Indians 
were uniformly friendly. No outbreak of an hostile char- 
acter ever arose between them. Whenever dissatisfaction 
was apparent, the Indians were assembled, treated with 
kindness, and "gratified with presents." 

For their title to the lands, our fathers rested upon the 
original agreement with Sequasson, the sachem of Sucki- 
age, and chief sachem of the neighboring tribes. But for 
the sake of satisfying the natives, this title was afterwards 
confirmed by two successive agreements, the first in 1650, 
the second in 1673. 

In the first of these, it is taken for granted, that "the 
magistrates bought the whole country to the Moohawks 
country, of Sequasson the chief sachem." Then it is no- 
ted that the Indians at that time } r ielded up all their 
grounds under improvement, and received "ground in 
place together compased about with a creke and trees." 
This was now to be staked out, and "although the English 
had bargained for the gras for their cows, yet this they let 
go." This reservation was that finest portion of the 



30 

meadow still called "the Indian Neck." The)' also allow- 
ed the Indians another slip of ground, which was the creek 
a little north of the Indian monument, called the canoe 
place, or the Indians' landing. It is also agreed that 
"whatever improved lands they surrendered in the first 
bargin-making, a like proportion should be broken up for 
them by the English in the place apoynted for them." 

It is then added "that this being done, the Indians have 
no propriety in any other grounds, except for felling wood, 
for hunting, fishing and fowling, provided that no injury is 
done by the means to the gras or corne of the English, or 
to the hurt of cattle, or breach of the orders of the country." 
It is then noted "that it is cleare that all the lands the Eng- 
lish have is little werth, till the wisdom, labor and estate 
of the English be improved upon it, and the magistrates, 
when they have land for a place give it away to the Eng- 
lish to labor upon, and take nothing for it." 

Item, "that the peace and plenty that the)'' have had 
and enjoyed by the presence of the English, in regard of 
protection of them, and trade with them, makes more to the 
\- advantage and comfort of the Indians, though they hire 
some land, than ever they enjoyed before the coming of the 
English, when all the lands was in their own disposal ; 
and although they do hire in regard of the increase of their 
company, yet their corn and skins will give a good price, 
which will counterbalance much more than the hire of their 
lands, and therefore the Indians have reason to live love- 
ingly among the English by whom their lives are preserv- 
ed, and their estates and comfort advantaged." " In this y 
we the chief Indians, in the name of all the rest acknow- 
ledge, and we engage ourselves to make no quarrels about 
this matter." This agreement* was signed by John Haynes 
and Pethuz and Ahamo his son, with their appropriate 

# Note I. 



31 

heraldic devices. It was witnessed by Stephen Hart, 
Thomas Judd, Thomas Thomson, Isaak More, Thomas 
Stanton, and Roger Newton. 

This title was again confirmed in 1673, by a recognition 
of the former agreement. In this new treaty there is re- 
served to the Indians two hundred acres of upland, which 
they are forbidden to sell without leave, together with the 
Indian Neck. There is also given a map of the land sold, 
as measured from Wepansock, or the Round Hill, ten 
miles south, eight west, three miles east, and five miles 
north. This is signed by twenty-six Indians, chiefs, 
squaws, and sons, with their appropriate devices. 

In 1681, Massacope gives a quit-claim deed of all this 
land. He was probably a Mattabeset Indian, and with his 
son signs the agreement for valuable considerations, and 
"gratification at the time of sale." Not satisfied with the 
limits as specified in the deed, he went out and for himself 
examined and marked the boundaries. 

Notwithstanding all these precautions, the early settlers 
of this town were often filled with fear and alarm. In 
1642, the General Court took measures in reference to a 
hostile gathering and plot of the Indians about Tunxis. In 
1657, the house of John Hart was destroyed by fire, and 
his family consumed with the exception of one son. In 
the same year Mr. Scott was cruelly murdered. The 
house of Mr. Hart was near the centre of the village, that 
of Mr. Scott on the border of "the great plains." Both 
these acts were ascribed to Meshupano as principal, and 
his accessories. For firing the house the Farmington In- 
dians paid each year a heavy tribute for seven years, 
"eighty faddome of wampum, well strung and merchanta- 
ble." The year after complaint is made of the bullets shot 
into the town from the garrison of the natives, and also of 
their entertainment of strange Indians, and they are order- 
ed to find another garrison. In 1662 we find them quar- 



32 

relline with the Podunks of Windsor. In 16S9 and 1704, 
which were years of alarm from distant Indians, houses 
were fortified, and stores of ammunition were provided. 
These fortified houses were strongly guarded by double 
doors, and narrow windows. The years named were 
years of alarm throughout New England, as in consequence 
of war between England and France, the colonies were 
threatened with incursions from the north and east, by 
French and Indians. 

The settlers of this town were early gathered into a 
church. This took place it is supposed about 1645,* when 
Mr. Roger Newton was installed their first pastor. Mr. 
Newton was one of "those young scholars" mentioned by 
Cotton Mather, who came over from England with their 
friends and completed their education in this county. He 
married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Thomas Hooker, of Hart- 
ford, and probably completed his education under his in- 
struction. He remained here till 165S, generally approved, 
when he removed by invitation to the more ancient and 
larger church at Milford, where he labored with acceptance 
till his death in 16S3. His widow was among the eighty- 
four proprietors of the town.t 

In July 1661, Mr. Samuel Hooker, son of Thomas 
Hooker, "the light of the western churches," was installed 
the pastor of this church, having received his degree at 
Harvard College in 1653. He continued the pastor of this 
church till his death, November 6, 1697, and was esteem- 
ed " an animated and pious divine." He was, according to 
the testimony of Rev. Mr. Pitkin, "an excellent preacher, 
his composition good, his address pathetic, warm and en- 

* Trumbull gives October 1652 as the date of the organization of the church 
and settlement of Mr. Newton. This I think to be incorrect, as Mr. Newton was 
the owner of a house and land in the town, April 1650, and all the accounts to 
which I have had access make it as early as 1644 or 1645. 

t She also inherited the farm of Gov. Hopkins in Farmington. 



33 

gaging," and as story relates, he informed a friend of his 
that he had three things to do with his sermons before he 
delivered them in public, "to write them, commit them 
unto his memory, and get them into his heart." 

From this notice, and the well known fact, that his father 
was famed throughout New England for the force and fire 
of his pulpit eloquence, we have reason to believe that he 
was a warm hearted and eloquent preacher. His death 
was deplored as "a great breach upon this people," and 
his memory was embalmed in the affections of his flock. 

He was a fellow of Harvard College, was employed in 
1662, one of a committee of four to treat with New Haven 
in reference to a union with Connecticut, and was esteem- 
ed throughout the state, an eminent and influential minis- 
ter. Cotton Mather says of him at the conclusion of the 
life of his father, "as Ambrose would say concerning The- 
odosius," 'Non totus recessit, reliquit nobis liberos in qui- 
bus eum debemus agnoscere et in quibus eum cernimus et 
tenemus ;' thus we have to this day among us our dead 
Hooker, yet living in his worthy son, Mr. Samuel Hooker, 
an able, faithful, useful minister at Farmington, in the 
colony of Connecticut." He resided at the place now oc- 
cupied by the house of Solomon Cowles,* was a large land- 
holder, and had eleven children, and among his descend- 
ants are named many of the most distinguished families 
and individuals of New England. His daughter Mary 
married Rev. Mr. Pierpont, of New Haven, and was the 
mother of Sarah the wife of Jonathan Edwards. 

Next to the church of God, (or rather as essential to the 

* Upon the homestead of Mr. Cowles is an apple-tree still in bearing, which 
was a sprout from the stump of a tree, that was brought over from England to 
Mr. Hooker. There is in the Bible formerly owned by Roger Hooker, Esq. a 
tolerably complete genealogical table of the descendants of Rev. Samuel Hook- 
er. In this it is stated I know not by what authority, that the Rev. Thomas 
Hooker of Hartford was a relative of Richard " the judicious Hooker." 

5 



34 

continuance and the prosperity of the church,) in the esti- 
S, mation of our fathers, was ranked the. .school. Through the 
deficiency of our early records, we cannot trace the vestiges 
of their earliest care ; but as far back as we can find regular 
records of their proceedings, we find its wants as were 
those of the church, the annual care of the town. In De- 
cember, 1GS2, the town vote .£10 towards maintaining a 
school, and appointed a committee to employ a teacher. 
In December, 16S3, they make the same appropriation, 
and order every man to pay lour shillings a quarter for each 
child that should be sent. Again they vote "to give £30 
for a man to teach school for one year, provided they can 
have a man that is so accomplished as to teach children to 
read and write, and to teach the grammar, and also to step 
into the pulpit to be helpful there in time of exigency, and 
this school to be a free school for this town." In another 
vote about this period, they order the services of a teacher 
to be secured who can teach Latin also. 

Year by year we find similar records, till 1700, when the 
colonial assembly having directed forty shillings on every 
.£1000 in the grand levy to be devoted to education, this 
town voted to add to the same a sufficient sum to maintain 
the schools for a certain portion of the year. 

We have thus far followed the scene which gradually 
opened during the first sixty years of the history of this 
settlement. During this period the inhabitants by degrees 
became more numerous, but with the exception of the colo- 
ny near " the Seamor-fort" and two or three houses on the 
northern borders of the great plain, they were as yet scat- 
tered for two miles or more along the street. The upland 
near their dwellings had been slowly cleared and the forest 
still lingered in sight, along the foot of the mountain. The 
western woods were yet an unbroken wilderness, save the 
opening which had been made by the Indians, as they re- 
treated in 1672, to their reservation across the meadows. 



3-3 

and rallied around a new burying place for their dead. 
On the south was " the white oak plain," still unsubdued, 
and " the great plain" was thickly crowded with its growth 
of birches and tangled shrub-oaks. It was not till 1G9-5, 
that a highway was laid through this district of the town. 
The meadows still furnished our lathers their grass for the 
long winter, and the corn for their favorite dish.* From 
the upland and the drier portions of the meadow, they har- 
vested their wheat, and rye and pease. The meadow was 
a common field, inclosed by a sufficient fence, and shut 
during the growing of the crops against the intrusion of 
cattle. The river furnished to the English and the na- 
tives, its overflowing abundance of shad and salmon, and 
the west woods abounded in deer, in wolves and panthers. 
In the forest up the mountain, and especially in the in- 
terval between the first and second range, was their com- 
mon place of pasturage, and this portion of the town was 
long reserved for that object. The meeting house lot was 
as yet a noble common of several acres. A canoe with 
ropes was furnished at the north end of the street, by which 
the river was crossed, as it was not till 1725 that the first 
bridge was erected at this place. At the annual town- 
meeting, no man might be absent who valued his twelve- 
pence. Then were chosen the townsmen, the register, the 
fence-viewers, the chimney viewers, so necessary in those, 
days of wooden mantles, of ill constructed chimnies, and of 
enormous fires, their ty thing men, and last, not least, their 
one constable, who was to them the right arm of the king 
himself; a functionary treated with reverent awe, and 
obeyed with implicit deference. Whosoever resisted the 
power, resisted the ordinance of God. Two men besides 
Mr. Hooker, bore the appellation of Mr.; Mr. Antony How- 

*"An Indian pudding." Perhaps they were directed to the choice of this 
dish, as it was a token of the richness of their soil, which produced something 
better than " white beans." 



36 

kin and Mr. John Wadsworth. Nor may we forget to 
name Capt. Wm. Lewis, Capt. John Stanley, Ensign Thos. 
Hart, and Sargt. Wm. Judd. 

Their communication with the other towns was infre- 
quent. Occasionally a traveler would appear by the path 
from Hartford, with news from their friends and kindred 
there, or a message of alarm from his Excellency the Gov- 
ernor, and now and then some one would emerge from the 
forest by the " New Haven path" with tidings from that 
commercial emporium or from the lands beyond the seas. 

The Indians were still here by hundreds. Within their 
slip of land reserved near the village, their canoes might be 
seen every day filling the little creek that put in from the 
river, and their owners were stalking along the streets, now 
trying the Indian's cunning, and now frowning with an In- 
dian's wrath. A few are gathered into the Christian church ; 
a few admitted as freemen : and a missionary school embra- 
cing sometimes fifteen or sixteen, is taught by Mr. Newton 
and perhaps by Mr. Hooker. 
, y The Sabbath was the great and central day of the week ; 
a day of awful and yet of rapturous joy. As the drum* 
beat its wonted and pleasant sound of invitation, they re- 
sorted to the house of worship with cheerful steps. Here 
they were roused and comforted by the fervent Hooker. 
Here they forgot their weekly labors in the forest, their fear 
of famine, their terror of the natives far and near, the armed 
guard that stood before the sanctuarv, and the necessity 
that had planted it there. Here too they forgot their fear 
lest the parent government should place over them a church 
from which they had fled. Yes, they even ceased to think 
of their brethren who were the faithful at home, and their 
brethren who were suffering worse upon the continent; for 
all their trials and all their fears, and most of all their lonely 

*Thia drum is still preserved. 



37 

dwelling place, made them realize the more that they were 
" pilgrims and strangers on the earth," and forced them to 
gaze with more earnest intenseness upon the brightness 
that flashed from the walls of the eternal city. Too rapidly 
did the sands fall in the hour glass. Too soon did they 
cease and the service is done. On the Sabbath too they 
meet their friends from the Seymour neighborhood, eight 
miles distant, who came to the house of God, a goodly com- 
pany, crossing a mountain by a footpath, whose sacred 
remnants are still to be seen ; the men armed against the 
savage, and the females carrying the infants which they 
dared not leave behind. At the interval between the hours 
of worship they invite them to their homes, and there par- 
take with them of a plain but plentiful repast. From the 
house of God they return at evening, to spend the remain- 
ing hours of sacred rest in joyful reflection upon the truth 
there heard, doubly grateful for a church such as they loved, 
though it were in the wilderness. Then they instruct, their 
children with strict and judicious care, and close the day 
by committing themselves and theirs to the care of the Al- 
might}-. To men situated as were they, his protection was 
more than a name ; for desolate indeed was their lot, if he 
cared not for them. 

Day by day through the week the instruction of the chil- ^ 
dren is prosecuted in patriarchal simplicity, and with patri- 
archal faithfulness. The sacred presence of parental re- 
straint follows the child wherever he goes. He enters not 
a door where there is not the same subduing influence ; 
while law with its majestic presence fills the very atmos- 
phere in which he breathes. 

Here was vigorous manhood, a body strengthened by 
youthful toils, delighting in its stern contests with labor 
and danger ; and a soul subdued while it is lifted up by 
divine and human law, and kindled by the fires of prayer/ 
and hope. Here was society fulfilling its aims and perfect- 



38 

ing its influences, as it never had done before. Thus pass- 
ed the earlier period in the annals of this ancient town, 
when here was its one house of worship, its one pastor, 
honored and loved, its one centre with a single colony at 
the east. 

The period following was attended with many changes, 
and gave a new aspect to its history. The first and most 
important of these is the rapid settlement of its outer por- 
tions, and their final separation from our borders. 

In 1705, leave was granted to so man}' of the inhabitants 
" as do personally inhabit the Great Swamp" to become a 
ministerial society, as soon as they should obtain a capable 
minister. In 1712, Mr. William Burnham is installed their 
pastor on the following terms — that a parcel of land should 
be secured to him, that his house should be finished, " he 
finding glass and nails"; that his salary for four years 
should be £50 per annum, and after that <£65 ; that labor 
to the amount of £5 a year should be bestowed on his land, 
and that his firewood should be furnished, brought home, 
and be made ready and fit for the fire. 

The Society which acceded to these terms consisted of 
fourteen families ; the church was organized of ten mem- 
bers ; a teacher is provided to go from district to district 
through five districts or " squaddams," " by reason that the 
inhabitants are so scattering in their ways." The unfin- 
ished meeting house is gradually completed ; first in 1714 
its pulpit and seats full in fashion ; then in 1717 the cush- 
ion ; then in 1719 the galleries after the manner of Far- 
mington galleries, and last of all, but not till a new house 
was built, the drum and the hourglass are provided. The 
settlement rapidly increased, as in 1717 fifty nine men and 
four widows were seated in the meeting house, " according 
to age and property, and whatever makes men honorable." 
From Kensington,* for this was the name of this society, 

* Note J. 



39 

New Britain* was separated in 1754. Efforts for this ob- 
ject had previously been made by the active influence of 
Col. Isaac Lee, and in 1758, Dr. Smalley was settled as 
their pastor, whose praise is in all the churches. 

In 1772, Kensington was again divided ; the third so- 
ciety is named Worthington, after Col. Worthington, who J 
was active in locating its limits. The three societies, now 
embracing parts of Wethersfield and Middletown, are made 
a town in 1785. 

Southingtont was surveyed and divided into lots in the 
year 1722. Before this a few settlers had gone within its 
limits, and settled along its northern section. It was made 
an ecclesiastical society between that time and 1728, and 
was constituted a town in 1779. The early settlers suf- 
fered somewhat through fear of the Indians, constructed a 
rude fort, and fortified certain dwellings. Until about the 
year 1785, wheat, as was the case in all this region, was 
readily raised upon its warm and loamy plains, when its 
culture was abandoned, through the destructive ravages of 
the Hessian fly. 

We come next in order to the settlement of " the western 
woods." For nearly a century from the first planting of the 
town, they continued an unbroken forest, and it was full a 
century before a single settler established himself within the 
limits of Burlington. This forest was the unfailing depen- 
dence of the Indian, and the field for the sports of the white 
man. It abounded in deer, and was not deficient in bears 
and wolves and catamounts. There are men now living 
who remember when venison was sold in our streets at 
two-pence the pound. 

Bristol| was first surveyed in 1721, and consisted of five 
tiers of lots a mile in width, including the highways of fif- 
teen rods. These tiers and the highways which divided 

"NoteK. +Note L. tNoteM. 



40 

them, ran north and south to the distance of five miles. 
They were intersected by highways from east to west at 
convenient distances asunder. Two lots were given to the 
two Indian families who resided within their limits, Polland 
and Bohemia, which still bear their names. The first set- 
tlement was commenced in 1727, by six families, whose 
names are known. They attended worship in Farming- 
ton till 1742, when they had preaching during the winter 
by the name of " the Southwest or Winter parish." In 
May, 1744, they were incorporated a society by the name 
of New Cambridge, which was five miles square. 

In October 2d, 1745, they vote to settle Mr. Newell as 
their pastor. For nearly two years his ordination was de- 
layed, through some opposition. Eight days after the vote, 
six men entered a protest against the management of the 
society's meeting. July 2d, 1747, when the final vote was 
taken to proceed to the ordination, most of these protesting 
men, and some others, as it is noted in the records, " pub- 
licly declared themselves of the Church of England, and 
under the Bishop of London"—" July 20th, 1747, Nehe- 
miah Roger publicly declared of the Church of England." 

Of the hunters in Bristol, two of the most successful were 
Capt. Jesse Gaylord, and Lieut. Josiah Ives. They had 
so rapidly thinned the game as to excite the jealousy of the 
Indians at Farmington and Waterbury, and had been 
threatened with their revenge. On one occasion as they 
were passing in opposite directions around a hill to secure 
certain game, Ives first reached the place, and stood still ; 
as Gaylord advanced he descried an Indian aiming at the 
life of the unconscious Ives. In an instant he shot him dead. 
In their alarm they secretly buried his body, together with 
his long and valuable gun. The event for a series of years 
was known only to themselves, through fear that the In- 
dians would avenge the blood of the slain, though it was 
the topic of solemn and anxious conference, as often as they 



41 

were together. After the removal of the Indians from this 
region they whispered it to their wives, and they, after the 
death of their husbands, made it known to their children. 
The name of the Indian was Morgan, and the swamp in 
which he was buried is known by the name of Morgan's 
swamp. 

Burlington* was probably first settled in 1740, by a man 
of the name of Strong, just a century after the planting of 
the town. Indeed a large bounty in lands was offered by 
the town to the first settler. Mr. Strong went over the 
line into the border of the woods, and made a clearing. 
In 1774, it became a society by the name of West Britain. 
July 3d, 1783, the Congregational church was gathered, a 
meeting house completed, and Rev. Jonathan Miller of 
Farmington, was settled their pastor. He was greatly 
honored in his day as a man of enlightened piety and as 
an instructive preacher. 

Before this event, they had their preaching in barns and 
dwelling houses. Prior to this time a Sabbatarian or Sev- 
enth day Baptist church had been gathered, the last mem- 
ber of which died about three years since. West Britain 
with New Cambridge, in 1785 were constituted a town by 
the name of Bristol, which was eleven miles long and five 
wide. In 1806, West Britain was severed from Bristol, 
and received the name of Burlington. 

Northington was constituted a society before 1750. In 
1751, a church was gathered, and Rev. Ebenezer Booge 
was installed the pastor. In 1830, it became a town by 
the name of Avon.t 

Smaller portions of the town were also annexed to Wol- 
cot, Windsor and Hartford. 

We return to the ancient town, which though divided 
into distinct societies, preserved its original limits till 1779, 

* Note N. t Note O. 

6 



42 

and its largest portions till after the peace of 1783. During 
nearly ten years after the death of Mr. Hooker, there was 
a sharp contention in the town in reference to a minister, 
which called for the interference and authority of the gene- 
ral court.* In 170-5, messengers were sent to Natascot, 
near Boston, to confer with Mr. Samuel Whitman. So great 
was the zeal of the people, that they proposed to pay to any 
one who would lend money to bear the expenses of their 
messengers, two shillings, for one shilling lent till the time of 
the next minister's rate. Their offers of salary were very 
liberal, first <£90 a year, with the use of the parsonage in 
the Pequabock meadows, as also forty acres of land in fee, 
and a house, he finding glass and nails. The year after 
.£200 were voted as a settlement, a salary of .£100 and his 
fire wood. Wheat at that time was five shillings and three 
pence per bushel. He was settled in 1706. In 1708, Mr. 
Whitman being about to visit his friends at Boston, the 
town by their vote, provide for the payment of the service 
and expenses of a " waighting man" to attend their minis- 
ter. He was a graduate of Harvard College in 1696, and 
in the words of Mr. Pitkin, " was a gentleman of strong 
mind and sound judgment ; his sermons correct, accurate 
and instructive ; his delivery and public address calm and 
moderate ; he was highly esteemed and greatly improved in 
ecclesiastical councils, and was esteemed a truly learned 
man." He died in 1751. 

In 1708, a new meeting house was erected, forty feet 
square, fronting closely on the street, of a pyramidal form, 
receding step by step, till it terminated in the belfry in the 
centre. This house stood till 1771, when the foundations 
of the present spacious housef were laid, which in 1S36 
was refitted in the true spirit of the Farmington people, 
who cherish an honorable reverence for ancient things, 

* Note P. t Note Q. 



43 

while yet they are not insensible to the convenience and 
taste of modern improvements. It is worthy of record, 
that the first intrusions upon the broad and spacious com- 
mon reserved as the meeting house lot, were resisted by 
the joint action of the proprietors. At last they yielded and 
sanctioned such intrusions by their vote, when John Thomp- 
son, 1713, entered his protest, which stands upon record a 
bold and manly statement and defence of the chartered 
rights of overpowered minorities. 

Irr 1752, Rev. Timoth}^ Pitkin was ordained the fourth 
pastor of the original church. He was a fervent and godly 
man, distinguished for his courtly and dignified manners, 
and his warm and winning addresses from the pulpit. He 
was dismissed at his own request, June 15th, 17S5.* 

The districts without the village were slowly settled, as 
till 1766 no schools were maintained except two in the vil- 
lage. The first school supported without the village was 
the one upon the Eastern Farms. "The Great Plain" 
was still uncleared, and it might be bought for a dollar the 
acre. Wild animals were abundant in the West Woods. 
So late as 1730, bounties were paid for wolves and wild- 
cats, and later than this, a bear was shot by a little girl of 
fourteen, in Bristol, while the family were absent at meet- 
ing in Farmington. Venison was sold in our streets as 
late as the war of the Revolution, and shad and salmon 
were still caught from the river. 

I find also a record about 1729, of a cession of a consid- 
erable tract of upland to several individuals, on condition 
that it should be sown with English grass. The meadows 
were still unmarked by dividing fences, and the Pine 
Woods till 1740 were burnt over for a pasture, to which 
the people in the eastern towns drove their young cattle in 
the spring. 

* Note II. 



u 

The Indians still remained. In 1740 the Indian hoys 
were so many and so strong, that they were esteemed more 
than a match for the whites of the same age. About the 
middle of the century, as game was scarce, they removed, 
first to Stockbridge, and afterwards to Brotherton, in Onei- 
da County, N. Y. A fragment of the tribe remained behind 
till they became extinct. The last male of unmixed blood, 
was buried December 21st, 1820, the day which completed 
the second century from the landing at Plymouth Rock, 
while the only surviving female stood trembling by the 
grave. Tradition relates that during the ministry of Mr. 
Whitman, the Stockbridge tribe invaded the Tunxis In- 
dians near their homes. They were met by the Tunxis 
tribe in battle array, in the little meadow two miles north of 
the centre. The Tunxis tribe were at first routed and driven 
back upon their ancient burying place. There they rallied 
and by the assistance of their squaws, who attacked the 
flank of the foe, they drove back the invaders with defeat 
and almost entire destruction. After the removal of the 
greater portion of the tribe to Oneida, they often visited 
their friends and sepulchres behind, and on such visits 
would hold dances at the old burying place, and evening 
powows, and give splendid exhibitions of their agility and 
strength. Col. Isaac Lee of New Britain, who flourished 
the latter half of the last century, being once in Farming- 
ton village, encountered a gigantic Indian who had often 
broken the laws, but had never been punished, through 
fear. In three attempts at w r restling the Indian was thrown ; 
after the first trial his eye glistened and he desired a second, 
but after the third he was satisfied. Col. Lee then went 
about the street upon the business which had brought him 
to the village, and the Indian closely followed him. He 
was questioned sharply as to his object. He respectfully 
and humblv answered, testifying his reverence, and wish- 
ed to know what had made his antagonist so strong. 



45 

During this century, the severity and strictness of the 
original manners were considerably relaxed. Amusements 
of the athletic kind were freely indulged. On every occa- 
sion of a public assemblage, and often at assemblages sought 
for the purpose, both the young and older men would unite 
in playing at ball, in wrestling and foot-racing. Indeed it 
is but very recently that the semi-annual playing at ball upon 
the green, has entirely ceased. Town often challenged 
town to a wrestling match, at which they met, each with its 
selected champions. He that was the victor in repeated 
contests was known in all the surrounding region, and hon- 
ored for his skill and strength. The champion who was 
the boast of this town, was Col. Isaac Lee of New Britain, 
who though the friend of Dr. Smalley, and honored in 
church and state, and above all regarded with terror as 
the king's magistrate, did not disdain to be known as the 
finest wrestler in the county. 

The fervor of the Puritans' piety had sadly declined. An / 
influx of foreign elements had mingled with the original 
stock. Ruinous and expensive wars had distracted the at- 
tention, corrupted the morals, and disturbed the quiet move- 
ments of society. But the Puritan forms still lingered, in 
grotesque contrast with more modern notions and modern 
principles, and modern gayety ; unanimated with the fervor 
and faith to which they were natural, and somewhat out of 
fashion to the tastes of even uncorrupted men. The con- 
tradiction between the old forms and the new spirit during 
this period, has more than any other circumstance led to an 
entire misapprehension of Puritan manners as they were 
when new and natural ; and subjected the Puritan char- 
acter and name to an ill-judging and most unworthy ri- 
dicule. The magistrate and minister were still regarded 
with awe. Says one who well remembered, I never dared 
to approach within two or three rods of Dr. Smalley or 
Col. Lee, without taking off my hat. So frequent and 



46 

prevalent was the practice of invoking the blessing of God 
on every occasion, that military captains prayed at the 
head of their troops, and the graver youth even maintain- 
ed it in all seriousness as a form, at their gayest entertain- 
ments. At the April election, the ministers from the 
different societies would meet, cast in their vote and dine 
with Mr. Pitkin after one had preached a sermon. The 
last sermon preached " on Proxies' day" was delivered in 
1815, and it is very lately that the electors' meeting has 
ceased to be opened with prayer. Until sixty years ago, 
this people were a plain* and secluded people, who were 
busy with agricultural empkwments, as agriculture was 
then conducted; satisfied with their situation, they left to 
Hartford the refinements and gayety of wealth and fash- 
ion, and to the restless spirits abroad the strife and excite- 
ments of political contests. Till about that time pleasure 
carriages were entirely unknown, and when Mr. Pitkin 
came in 1750, in a carriage with his newly married wife, 
the company who met him were sorely puzzled to know 
what it could be.t 

Until a little before the revolutionary war, a single trader 
in merchandize was all that was needed or known. But 
about that time the mercantile business assumed a new 
importance, and after the peace of 1783 it was prosecuted 
with great vigor. The town became a mart for the several 
societies of ancient Farmington, and for many of the neigh- 
boring towns. In 1803 a capital of 125,000 dollars was 
employed ; 73,000 in shipping and 52,000 in ordinary 
trade ; 10,000 a year was paid in duties. The merchants 
were active, diligent and successful, and through the ad- 
vantages furnished by the local situation of the town, as it 
was then situated, and their deserved reputation, they ac- 
cumulated great estates. To the increase of trade, and 

* Note S. t Note T. 



47 

the refining influence exerted by Rev. Mr. Pitkin, is 
attributed the improvement in the tastes and manners of 
the people. But agriculture, as it has been in the past, the 
commanding interest of the town, so will it be in the future, 
with its renewed and deserved dignity, and its enlarged 
opportunities ; if we may judge from the intelligent spirit 
and instructed zeal which has within a few years given an 
added neatness and richer verdure to fields so fair by na- 
ture. While our ancient parent rejoices in the enterprise 
and success in the mechanic arts of her daughter settle- 
ments, we hear her say to those who are at present within 
her control, "Let the man who has a farm in Farmin^ton 
keep it and work on it, if he would be wise and happy and 
prosperous." 

We have seen the zeal of our fathers for the church of 

v 

God ; the church and the ministry were the first objects of 
their care. For these they labored and toiled, and with 
what marked success. Rich are the results of their com- 
mon care and toil. More than twenty churches stand up- 
on the soil where once stood one ; among them some of 
the largest and most flourishing in the state, and blessed 
most copiously with wondrous displays of God's richest 
grace. 

Their zeal for education we have traced in its first be- 
ginnings ; we now record its later efforts.* The original 
highways of the town were laid out very wide ; some of 
them were forty rods in width. In 1784, the town direct- 
ed the parts of them which were useless, to be sold ; also 
other unappropriated lands, and the avails to be appropri- 
ated to the formation of a school fund for the several school J 
societies in the town. In 1786, this act was confirmed by 
the legal representatives of the eighty-four proprietors, in 
public meeting, and sanctioned by the legislature the same 

* Note u. 



48 

year. The fund thus formed for the present school socie- 
ty, is 9276 dollars and 53 cents. In 1795, the legislature 
constituted school societies throughout the state. In 1796, 
this school society, by their committee, digested a system 
of regulations for the appointment of visitors, and the dis- 
cipline of the schools. 

In 179S, the legislature passed an act applicable to all 
the school societies in the state. This act embraces sub- 
stantially the same provisions, with the system of rules 
just named, and employs almost precisely the same phra- 
seology in denning them. When I state that Governor 
Treadwell was the chairman of the committee of this school 
society, and also framed the bill for the application of the 
school fund of this state, the similarity is explained. To 
this town, in the person of this honored and venerated man, 
is to be traced the school system of Connecticut. 

I can barely allude to the virtues of this truly New Eng- 
land man.* They took their rise in fervent and reflecting 
piety, which delighted in the earnest study of the word of 
God, and the fruits of which were the plain, upright and 
venerable worth, which distinguished his name. Under 
his auspices as its first President, was formed in this town, 
in 1810, "the American Board of Commissioners for For- 
eign Missions." 

The Hon. John Hooker was a man of great eminence in 
our early history. He was the third son of Rev. Samuel 
Hooker. " He was a man of a clear and strong mind, em- 
inent for his ability and usefulness. For many years he 
served in the offices of Town-Clerk, Justice of the Peace, 
Clerk, and afterwards Speaker of the Colonial House of 
Representatives. He was also one of the Assistants, and 
Judge of the Supreme and Circuit Courts. He began his 
public services about 1690, and died February, 1745-6, 

" .Note V. 



49 

aged eighty-two." For fifty years he was the prominent 
man of the town, and known throughout the state, for his 
worth and unquestioned claims to eminence. 

This has been from the first, in some particulars, a high- . 
ly favored town. It was gifted by nature with soil of a 
superior quality, including most of the varieties which the 
agriculturist can desire. It is watered with an abundance 
of streams, its surface is pleasantly varied, and its scenery 
is rivalled by that of few other towns in Connecticut. It 
was planted by men of one mind, who were characterized 
by the simplicity of their pious wishes, and the soundness 
of their practical views. It received the fostering care of 
Hooker, under a long and successful ministry to those who 
esteemed him highly for what he was in himself, and loved 
him for the sake of his father. During his ministry, the 
character of the town was fixed, and the habits of the peo- 
ple were formed for many generations. During the earlv 
period of its history, it suffered from no unhappy or disturb- 
ing admixtures, by those who perverted the new found lib- 
erty of the gospel to the licentiousness of a heated fancy, or 
the divisiveness of a stubborn will. 

Its public men have been simple in their aims, fixed v - 
and persevering in their efforts, and guided by that wisdom 
which is founded on faith in God. They have been long 
in their lives, and thus honored by the public confidence 
for a series of years, have they been able to leave behind 
them the permanent impress of their influence. This town 
has, to a remarkable degree, been free from the degrading 
fascinations, and the destructive excitements of party ani- 
mosities. To its honor may it be said, that it has been the 
home of but few professed politicians, as the people have 
ever scorned the trade. 

Its ministry have been sound in the faith, and also pious 
and practical men. The original church has never been / 
rent into weak and divided fragments, arrayed against each 
7 



50 

other, in sectarian jealousy, but it has ever delighted in its 
one fold and its one shepherd. Here has education been 
fostered, and in its turn, has it elevated and refined the 
tastes of the people. Here has piety dwelt ; and here has 
it trained its hundreds of holy men for the joys and rewards 
of Heaven. Here has the Most High displayed his grace, 
and the triumphs of his wondrous power. 

As the result of all these influences, it is believed that 
few are the villages in New England, which retain more of 
the old New England spirit, with so few of its veiy few 
defects ; — that few are the places of residence in the coun- 
try, which are hallowed and cheered by a more kindly 
social feeling, by purer moral influences, and a higher 
tone of piety. 

As we close this rapid survey of the history of this an- 
cient and honored town, and thus take our leave of the 
past, we can only, in farther vindication of our fathers, 
point to the results of their wisdom and virtue. Men who 
ought to know better, may sneer if they will, and render to 
them a forced and qualified praise ; they may talk of the 
excessive honor which is paid them, and gather all the 
stories which they choose about witchcraft and the Qua- 
kers. To all this we have but one reply. Where is there 
another New England ? 
V Dreamers of the perfection and beauty of foreign institu- 
tions, may speak to us of "merry England." England, 
we gladly acknowledge deserves our abundant honor, for 
her piety, her literature, her free and energetic spirit, and 
i the success of her practical wisdom. But England in the 
reign of Elizabeth, her golden time, fought with her pious ,/ 
and learned ministers, and starved her people of their 
needful food in their newly awakened zeal for learning 
and religion. Ever since, she has been agitated by in- 
ternal conflicts, or absorbed in foreign wars, or corrupted 
! by a profligate court, or degraded by a worldly ministry. 



51 

f Though the collected glories of her mighty men deserve 
and receive an honor which we claim not for the daughter- 

I land, yet they may not hide from a discerning or honest 
vision, the degradation and ignorance which brood over 

f her untaught people. Never yet, with all her wisdom, and 
with all her noble spirit, has she learned to aim first at the 

\ substantial good of the men who fight her battles and till 
her fields. As she has never known this grand aim of New 

| England's fathers and New England's sons, she is not New 
England, and deserves not our highest honor. 

"But these institutions will not endure; there is a de- 

I feet in their constituent elements ; they bear within the 
seeds of their certain dissolution." Such has been the 

I saying from the first, even before these institutions were 
borne across the sea. But they have continued till now, 
and we proudly ask at this moment, as we look around the 

1 world, what institutions will endure, if these will not ? 
True, they never will endure, except as they are animated 
and upheld by the spirit of their founder, and this the Pu- 
ritans knew from the first as well or better than you. To 
sustain and give them life and vigor, we must have the 

. original zeal for education, — the old-fashioned reverence 
for God and the sovereign law. 

Let our theorists then, cease to be afraid of the unadorn- 
ed and feeble frame-work of our institutions, and devote 
themselves to the improvement of the men who uphold 
them. Men are what we need. 

" These constitute a state", — 

" Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate ; 

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned, 

Where laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 

Not starred and spangled courts, 

Where low-born baseness wafts perfume to pride ; 

No ; — men, high-minded men." 



52 

Let those who despair of the institutions of their fathers, 
learn anew the first principle of the wisdom of those whose 
name and works they despise, — that man cannot be mend- 
ed by forms of government or forms of religion, and that it 
untaught the fear of God, he mars the best institutions. 
Let them give their lives to the one great purpose of rearing 
men, who shall be fit to live under institutions that are free, 
and they will learn to be thankful that our institutions are 
free enough to give them leave thus to labor. The ancient 
public spirit, even a tithe of it, will give our social bodies 
all the unity and order which they need or ought to possess. 
The ancient reverence for God and the law, will make 
them stable.. The ancient love of knowledge and its fer- 
vent piety, the patrons of genuine taste, will beautify their 
structure with becoming ornaments. 

Give us the spirit of our fathers, and we fear not for their 
institutions. They cannot but live. We ask not for their 
manners, for they have gone by with the age which pro- 
duced them. We ask not for all their opinions, for the 
original devotion to truth as supreme, has led their sons, 
as it would have led the fathers, had they lived in their 
day, to cast off that which was false, and easily put on, that 
which has been shown to be true. But we ask for their 
spirit, — that spirit which we this day delight to honor, and 
whose presence, we trust will ever bless these hills and 
valleys. That spirit is recognized in every page of New 
England's history. The beginnings of its wisdom are « the 
fear of the Lord." Its out-goings, are restraint in the family, 
and law in the state, simple manners, frugal expenditures, 
stern self-respect, the subjection of the private opinion and 
the private will to the greater good of the whole, and a 
fervid and disinterested zeal for the school and the church 
of God. 

To sustain this spirit we must have these institutions. 
In no other than the free and bracing air of our hills and 



53 

mountains, does the body attain its highest vigor and its 
most active energy, and under no other social forms in 
church and state, is there gained that strength and energy 
of soul, which their very freedom chastens and subdues, 
by an awful sense of the responsibility of the individual 
man. 

We have another and a nobler hope. The God of our 
fathers still lives. It was the opening of a new act in 
the drama of his Providence, when he prepared the way 
for our fathers across the deep, and led them by his own 
hand as they were thrust out from their native shores ; 
not for their sakes but for the sake of the institutions which 
were enshrined in their hearts, and were ready to be form- 
ed by their hands, the instant they landed upon these shores. 
As we look back along the dim path-way of their darkness 
and danger in the past, we behold the bright token of his 
presence and care, in the words which the three vines 
planted on the Connecticut, delighted to bear aloft upon 
their banner; " Qui transtulit sustinet." As we look for- 
ward to the days that are to come, we behold them as they 
brighten in the distance, splendid in their tokens of future 
promise. 

Yes, he who brought them over, will still uphold ; not 
them, for they are dead, and so are their sons, and their 
sons' sons ; but their principles, their spirit and their honor- 
ed names. 



NOTES. 

Note A. p. 7. 

"Politics of the Puritans." 

An article thus entitled appeared in the New York Review for January, 1840, 
in which a singular use is made of the statement, that the Puritans constituted a 
religious and political party. In that article there occur the following extraordi- 
nary propositions: "We intend to assert the plain and simple proposition, that 
the real contest between Churchmen and Puritans was for the political ascen- 
dancy : Churchmen desiring to continue prelacy as the religion of the state, 
while the Puritans were striving to elevate presbyterianism to the same post, 
both parties the mean while, professing to be influenced solely by a regaid for 
religion, and having its best interests deeply at heart." p. 53. " Hence, when the 
Puritans left England, they did it, not because they could not "worship God ac- 
cording to the dictates of their own consciences," but because they could not ob- 
tain the political ascendancy which they sought." p. 61. To the latter of these 
statements the following facts may not be inappropriate. The original planters 
of New England consisted of two classes, "those of the separation," and the non- 
conforming members of the church of England. The few original planters of 
the Plymouth Colony were of the former class, who fled from England to Hol- 
land, and emigrated from thence to New England. They were Congregatiou- 
alists in their views of church government, and deemed it right to separate from 
the church of England, and to form themselves into a distinct religious commun- 
ion. These men certainly never sought "to gain the political ascendancy" in 
England. They were known in that country only as a handful of despised 
fanatics. They fled from their native country simply and solely because they 
could not "worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences." 

The great majority of the early settlers had never separated from the church in 
England, and deemed it wrong to do so. When they landed upon these shores, 
they landed as members of the church of England, who knew no form of church 
order and discipline, except the order and discipline of that church. " With the 
exception of the Plymouth colonists" says Hubbard, "none of the rest of the 
planters came over in any settled order of government, only resolving when 
they came hither to carry on those affairs as near as they could, exactly accord- 
ing to the rule and pattern laid before them in the word of God, &c." When 



56 

they landed in a distant country, they considered themselves as loosed from their 
scruples against separation, and as bound to organize themselves into churches, 
according to the primitive and apostolical pattern, as they should be guided by 
the word of God open before them. 

Is it asked why then did they leave their country at all ? The answer is this. 
They could not comply with usages enjoined by ecclesiastical authority, without 
violence to their sacred convictions and conscientious scruples. The only reply 
which they received was, you must conform or suffer the penalty. When, too, 
they attempted to worship God, and assembled in secret to hear his word as 
dispensed by their valued ministers, they assembled not as members of a sepa- 
rate communion, but as members of the church of England, who yet deemed it 
right thus to meet to hear the word from its authorized expounders. For this 
offence they were fined and imprisoned. It would be difficult to know in what 
situation men must be placed, not to be permitted " to worship God according to 
their consciences," if these men were not in this situation. 

It deserves to be noted also, that previous to the planting of New England by 
this class of men, nearly sixty years had elapsed after Cartwright had published 
the doctrine, that the Presbyterian form of church government was apostolic and 
divine, and nearly fifty years after the first Presbytery had been organized in 
England. During this interval these views had been advanced and defended 
with a zeal sufficiently active, and yet those who planted the colonies of Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut, had never deemed it right to separate from the church 
in which they were born. It does not appear that the Episcopacy of the church 
was a feature to which they could not conscientiously have submitted, but its 
offensive requisitions; though it was doubtless true that the most of them 
would have preferred that the power of the bishops should be greatly abridged. 
It is not true "that the real contest between churchmen and the planters of New 
England was for the political ascendancy," for it is most obvious that had the 
scruples of the non-conformists been allowed in regard to usages contained of, 
and had their efforts for the promotion of piety been countenanced, they would 
never have dreamed of leaving England, because they could not gain the ascend- 
ancy for Presbyterianism. Indeed one need to be very little acquainted with 
their history to know, that Presbyterianism was not the form of church govern- 
ment which they established in this country. 

It may not be amiss to add a word or two in relation to the history of the 
Puritans as a political party. 

During the reign of Elizabeth, those members of ''the Commons" who were 
displeased with the abuses in the church, and wished them to be remedied, foras- 
much as the church was a part of the commonwealth, and under the care of the 
Parliament, strove as far as they were able, to effect a reform of these abuses. 
In most of the Parliaments during the reign of Elizabeth, a considerable number 
of the house of commons favored motions for this object. This they had a right 
to do. This they were bound to do. Less than this, they ought not to have 
done, as the constituted guardians of the church. All this while, a party purely 
civil and political, was rapidly growing in strength ; the party of the people in 
opposition to the party of the court ; a party, which was called into being by the 



57 

folly of the queen, in exalting her royal prerogative, and invading the privileges 
of Parliament, in order to effect her will in the matters of religion. This party 
grew more and more bold through the reign of James I. and dared to con- 
tend with him, in a manner to which the kings of England had not been at all 
accustomed. Its objects, as a political party, were the removal of the royal pre- 
rogatives, rather than the reformation of the church. To this party the non- 
conformists belonged, and though it included some who cared for no farther 
reformation in religion, yet it was the bold, daring and conscientious ardor for 
truth, in opposition to power, which characterized the Puritans as a class, which 
gave to it its vigor, its energy and its triumph. It was not however, as members 
of a political party, that they were so molested by the bishops and the king as to 
be driven to emigrate, but as members of the church, who as ministers were 
silenced and deprived of their livings, and as laymen were fined and imprisoned. 
Twenty years after the emigration to New England began, and after thou- 
sands had left the mother country, the two parties in the state, were arrayed 
against each other in the civil wars, in the progress of which, Presbyterianism 
was for a short time, the established church of England. But how did this hap- 
pen? The Long Parliament consisted of those, a great majority of whom were 
according to Lord Clarendon, opposed to the abolition of Episcopacy. Among 
these were the leaders of the cause of the Parliament. The great majority were 
indeed, in favor of some reform in the church ; but their rupture with the king, 
was not occasioned by differences upon matters of the church, and they were at 
the farthest possible distance from taking the field to gain the ascendancy for 
Presbyterianism. In the progress of the war, the affairs of the Parliament, were 
involved in doubt and danger. At this time the Scots offered their assistance, 
provided that the covenant should be taken and Episcopacy abolished. To this 
the Parliament reluctantly consented, for the sake of securing the army of Scot- 
land. In the words of Lord Clarendon, " the parliament were sensible they 
could not carry on the war but by the help of the Scots, which they were not to 
expect without an alteration of the government of the church, to which that nation 
was violently inclined, but very much the major part of the members that contin- 
ued in the Parliament house were cordially affected to the established church, at 
least not affected to any other." 



NoteB. p. 25. 

In the records of the town, which go back as far as 1646, there occur no data, 
from which the year can be ascertained in which the first settlement of the town 
commenced. That it began in 1640, is probable from the following notices and 
extracts from the colonial records. 

Feb. 20, 1639, i. e. 1640, the report of the committee appointed in Jan. is de- 
layed to the general court, soon to fall in course. 

June 15, 1640. The particular court is ordered to conclude the conditions for 
the planting of Tunxis. 



58 

I give also an extract from the agreement respecting the possession of Hart- 
ford as renewed with the Indians in 1670, as it not only fixes the time in which 
the first planting of Farmington commenced, but also records the manner in 
which the soil was purchased. 

" Whereas our predecessors, Sunckquasson, sachem of Suckiage, alias Hart- 
ford, did about the year 1636, by writing under his hand, pass over unto Mr. 
Samuel Stone, and Mr. William Goodwin, &c. all that part of his country, from 
a tree, &c. and from the great river on the east, the whole breadth to run into the 
wilderness towards the west full six miles, &c. which grant of Sunckquasson as 
occasion hath been, was by him renewed to the Hon. John Haynes, Esq. and 
other the first magistrates of this place, and enlarged to the westward so far as his 
country went, which enlargement with his former grants, was made in the pres- 
ence of many of the natives of the place and English inhabitants, and several 
years after, about the time of the planting of Farmington, in the year one thou- 
sand six hundred and forty, in writing made between the English and Pethuz, 
&c. sachem or gentleman of that place, there is a full mention of the aforesaid 
Sunckquasson," &c. 

Note C. p. 25. 

(This note was prepared at my request by Rev. W. S. Porter.) 

Original Proprietors and Settlers of Farmington. 

Farmington appears to have been originally purchased by the principal pro- 
prietors of Hartford. The following is a list of the owners of house lots and 
settlers, so far as information can be gained from the records in Farmington and 
Hartford. The letter ' S' denotes actual settlers, nearly all of whom had previ- 
ously lived in Hartford. 

Mr. John Haynes, Esq. 

Mr. Samuel Wyllys, 

Mr. Edward Hopkins, 

Mr. Thomas Welles, 

Mr. John Steele, S. died in 1664. 

Mr. John Talcott, 

Mr. John Webster, 

Elder William Goodwin, S. died in 1673. 

William Pantry, 

Thomas Scott, 

Deac. Andrew Warner, S. removed to Hatfield. 

John White, 

Stephen Hart, S. died in 1683. 

William Lewis, S. Register, died in 1690. 

Rev. Roger Newton, S. removed to Milford. 



59 

Thomas Webster, 

Matthew Webster, S. 

Nicholas Mason, 

Thomas Barnes, S. died in L688 

John Pratt, 

Reuold Marvin, 

Matthew Marvin, 

John Brovvuson, S. removed to Wethersfield, and died in 1680. 

Richard Brownson, S. died in 1687. 

George Orvice, S. died in 1764. 

Thomas Porter, S. died in 1697. 

Francis Browne, 

John Warner, S. died in 1679. 

Thomas Demon, S. removed to Long Island. 

John Cole, S. removed to Hadley. 

Deac. Thomas Judd, S. removed to Northampton. 

Thomas Upson, S. died in 1655. 

Deac. Isaac Moore, S. 

John Lomes, S. removed to Windsor. 

William Hitchcock, or Ilecock, S. soon died. 

John Wilcock. 

Nathaniel Watson. 

The following purchased house lots of the original owners, and were original 
settlers; and most of them were also from Hartford. 

Robert Porter, died in 1689. 
'jolni North, died in 1692. 
John Steele, Jun. died in 1653. 

Samuel Steele, removed to Wethersfield, and died in 1685. 
John Hart, burnt in 1666, with all his family except the oldest son who was 

absent. 
Nathaniel Kellogg, soon died. 

Matthew Woodruff, soon died or removed perhaps to Milford. 
Thomas Thomson, died in 1655. — 
John Andrews, died in 1681. 
John Lee, died in 1690. 
William Adams, died in 1653. 
John Clark, died in 1712. 
Samuel Cowles, died in 1691. 
Moses Ventrus, died in 1697. 
William Ventrus, removed to Haddam. 
Robert Wilson, died in 1655. 
John Wiatt, removed to Haddam. 
John Standley, died in 1706. 
Joseph Kellogg, 
Deac. John Langdon, died in 1639. 



60 

Thomas Hosmer, returned to Hartford 
William Smith, died in 1669. 
Thomas Newell, died in 1689 
David Carpenter, died in 1650- 

The other early settlers were 

Thomas Haueox, in Kensington. 
John Root, died in 1684. 
Mr. Simon Wrothum, died in 1689. 
Edmund Scott, removed to Waterbury. 
Dr. Daniel Porter, died 1690. 
\ Mr. John Wadsworth, died in 1689. 
Thomas Orton, 
James Bird, died in 1708. 
Joseph Bird, died in 1695. 
Rev. Samuel Hooker, died in 1697. 
Mr. Anthony Howkins, died in 1673. 
Richard Jones, removed to Haddam. 
William Corbe, removed to Haddam. 
Joseph Woodford, died in 1701. 
Zach. Seymor, removed to Wethersfield. 

Richard Seymor, went to Great Swamp or Kensington with others in 1686. 
Thomas Bull, died in 1708. 
John Norton, 

Abraham Dibble, removed to Haddam. 
Richard Jones, removed to Haddam. 
Richard Weller, 

John Carrington, removed to Waterbury. 
Thomas Gridley, died in 1712. 
Samuel Gridley, died in 1696. 
Obadiah Richards, removed to Waterbury. 
Thomas Richardson, removed to Waterbury. 
John Scovill, removed to Haddam. 
John Welton, removed to Waterbury. 
John Rew, died in 1717. 
John Blackleach, merchant. 
Joseph Hawley, died in 1753. 

The eighty-four proprietors consisted of such of the above as resided in th<? 
town in 1672, or their sons, together with three non-resident owneis, viz. Mr. 
Newton, Mr. Haynes, and Mr. Wyllys. 



Gl 

Note D. p. y.">. 

Charter of 1645. 

"> December ye first, 1645, its ordered that ye 
plantation called Tunxes shall be called ffarming- ■/ 
ton, and that the Bounds thereof shall be as fol- 
> loweth : The eastern Bounds shall meet with the 
western of these plantations which are to be five 
miles on this sid ye Great River, and the Northern 
Bounds shall be five miles from ye Hill in ye 
Great meadow towards Masseco ; and the Southern Bounds 
from ye sd Hill shall be five miles : and they shall have liberty 
to improve ten miles further then ye sd five, and to hinder 
others from the like, untill ye court see fitt otherwise to dis- 
pose of it: and ye sd plantation are to attend the General 
Orders, formerly made by this court; settled by ye Comit- 
tee to whom the same was referred ; and other ocations; as 
the rest of ye Plantations upon the River do : and Mr. Steel 
is entreated for the present to be Recorder there, until ye Town have one fitt 
among themselves : they allso are to have ye like Libertyes as ye other Towns 
upon ye River for makeing orders among themselves: provided they alter not 
any fundamental agreements settled by ye sd Comittee hitherto attended. 

A true copy of ye Record exam'd. 

by Hez : Wyllys, Secret'y. 



John Haynes, Esq. Gov. 
Edward Hopkins, Esq. Dep 
Capt. Mason, 
Mr. Wolcot, 
Mr. Webster, 
Mr. Whiting, 
Mr. Wells. 
Mr. Trott, 
Mr. Olhster, 
James Boosey, 
Jno. Demon, 
Mr. Hull, 
Mr. Stoughton, 
\ Mr. Steel, 
Mr. Talcot. 



At a General Assembly held at Hartford, May 11th, 1671. This Court con- 
firme unto ffarmington theyer Bounds Ten miles towards ye South from ye 
Round Hill : provided Capt. Clark injoy his Grant, without those exceptions 
made in theyer former Grant. 

A true copy of Record, exam'd. 

by Hez : Wyllys, Secret'y. 



62 

Note E. p. 26. 

Monument. 

By order of the School Society of Farmington, a monumental block of red 
sand-stone was erected the present year to the memory of the Indians. It stands 
in the new burying ground on the bank of the river. The spot is one of sad his- 
torical interest as the following inscription on one side of the monument explains : 

IN MEMORY OF THE INDIAN RACE J ESPECIALLY 

OF THE TUNX1S TRIBE, THE ANCIENT 

TENANTS OF THESE GROUNDS. 

The many human skeletons here discovered confirm the tradition that this spot was 
formerly an Indian burying-place. Tradition further declares it to he the ground on 
ichicli a sanguinary battle 7cas fought between the Tunxis and Stockbridge tribes- 
Some of their scattered remains have been re-interred beneath this stone. 

The reverse side of the monument bears the following lines : 

Chieftains of a vanished race, 
In your ancient burial place, 
By your fathers' ashes blest, 
Now in peace securely rest. 
Since on life you looked your last, 
Changes o'er your land have passed ; 
Strangers came with iron sway, 
And your tribes have passed away. 
But your fate shall cherished be, 
In the strangers' memory ; 
Virtue long her watch shall keep, 
Where the red-men's ashes sleep. 

Note F. p. 26. 

The central settlement of this tribe was at Middletown, formerly called Matte- 
besick or Mattabeset. 



63 



Note G. p. 27. 



In 1669, by order of the General Court, the names of all the Freemen of the 
Colony were returned to the Secretary's office. 

"Oct. 12, 1669. These are the names of the freemen in tfarmintowne, as 
follows : 



1 Mr. Howkin, 

Mr. Hooker, 

Steven Hart, Senior, 

Thomas Judd, Senior, 

Leiftenant William Lewes, 
>» Ensign Sammuell Steel, 

Seargant John Standby, 
^n Seargant John Wadsworth, 

Thomas Orton, 

John Norton, 

Joseph Woodford, 

Thomas Newell, Senior, 

William Judd, 

Thomas Judd, 

John Judd, 

Matthew Webster, 

John Andrews, Senior, 

Robert Porter, 

John Lee, 
** Thomas Hart, 

Thomas Porter, Senior, 

Moses Ventroos. 



Thomas Barns, 
John Lauckton, 
John Warner, Senior, 
John Warner, Junior, 
I Thomas Hosmer, 
Edition Scott, ? 

John Root, Senior, 
John Brownson, Senior, 
Samuell Cole, Q_rtAAJ-^e-^> 

Steven Hart, Junior, 
Richard S earner, 
Isaac More, 
Matthew Woodron", 
John Woodroff, 
John North, Senior, 
William Smith, 
James Bird, 
Benjamin Judd, 
John Clark, 
Joseph Bird, 
Zacree S earner, 
43. 



Of this list nine names are the same which appear in the list of landholders in 
Hartford, in 1639, thirty years before ; twenty -seven of the forty-three have the 
same family names ; three occur in the list of the original church formed by 
Thomas Hooker, in Cambridge, in 1633, viz. Steven Hart, William Lewis, and 
John Clark; of this original church, Steven Hart was a deacon. 



Note H. p. 27. 



Eight v-four Proprietor. 



The following is a list of the names of'- the eighty-four proprietors" with their 
estates, as increased in accordance with the original act of division. By this act, 
an estate of £20 was increased to £30; of £30 to £40; of £40 to £50; of 



64 



£50 to £60; £60 to £63; £68 to £75; to Mr. Hooker 
according to his estate. 



' a dubble allottment' 



Mr. Haynes, £263,00 

Mr. Wyllys, 168,00 

Thomas Orton, 152,00 

John Norton, 157,00 

>• Left. Lewis, 187,00 

Joseph Woodford, 84,00 

Thomas Newel, 167,00 

Mr. Howkins, ' 158,00 

John Thomson, 73,00 

* John Steel's heirs, 65,00 

. Samuel Steel, Junior, 21,00 

Ensign Steel's land, 21,00 

Thomas Thomson, 60,00 

Thomas Judd, Senior, 80,10 

John Judd, 69,00 

Phillip Judd, 33,00 

William Judd, 140,00 

Thomas Judd, Jr. 99,00 

John Andrus, 93,00 

John Stanley, Senior, 131,00 

Robert Porterr— >> 112,00 

John-Leer^" 97,00 

Stephen Hart, Senior, 132,00 

John Hart's estate, 73,00 

. Thomas Hart, 104,00 

Thomas Porter, Senior, 73,00 

Thomas Porter, Junior, 50,00 

John Wadsworth, 183,00 

Moses Ventrus, 73,00 

Jacob Brownson, 65,00 

Thomas Barnes, 120,00 

JohnLangdon, 140,00 

John Root, Junior, 26,00 

John Warner, Senior, 97,00 

John Warner, Junior, 68,00 
Simon Wrothum, on account 

of.Thomas Osmer, 68,00 

Daniel Porter, 118,00 

Edmond Scott, S6,00 

Isaac Brownson, 65,10 

Samuel Hicox, 50,00 

Joseph Hicox, 37,00 

David Carpenter, 32,00 



John Welton, £50,00 

Thomas Richason, 34,00 

Widow Orvis, 61,00 

Daniel Warner, 47,00 

John Root, Senior, 166,00 

Mr. Samuel Hooker, 288,00 

John Carington, 44,00 
John Brownson, Senior, 101,00 

John Cole, 75,00 

John Scovel, 39,00 

Richard Brownson, 128,00 

John Brownson, Junior, 50,00 

Thomas Bull, 71,00 

Samuel Cowles, 94,00 

Abraham Brownson, 50,00 

Obadiah Richards, 41,00 

Daniel Andrus, 44,00 

Abraham Andrus. 35,00 

John Stanley, Junior, 67,00 

Richard Seamor, 49,00 

Stephen Hart, Junior, 106,00 

Isaac Moor, 127,00 

Matthew Woodruff; 90,00 

John Woodruff, 83,00 

Sarj. Samuel Steel, 96,00 

John North, Senior, 157,00 

Widow Smith, 68,00 

Jonathan Smith, 39,00 

Jobamer Smith, 36,00 

Ben. Judd, 63,00 

James Bird, 59,00 

Joseph Bird, 53,00 

John Clark, 74,00 

John North, Junior, 56,00 

Samuel North, 56,00 

Zach. Seamor, 46,00 

Thomas Hancox, 63,00 

John Porter, 33,00 

Thomas Gridley, 53,00 

William Higgeson, 41,00 
Samuel Gridley. 

Mr. Newton's land, 37,00 



> 



65 

Note I. p. 30. 

Any one who reflects upon the circumstances of the early settlers, or the situa- 
tion of the town at the time when they made the agreement of 1650, will see at 
once that the Indians received a full equivalent for their lands, in the several 
particulars stated in that agreement. The Indians yielded to the whites the 
lands, reserving to themselves all the uses to which they had ever apj>lied them, 
and as much land for improvement as they had before occupied by tillage. The 
streams and the whole of the forest remained theirs, for "fishing, hunting and 
fowling," as they had been before. To the west as far as the Housatonic was an 
unbroken forest, occupied by the game which was the Indians' sustenance, with 
perhaps a single feeble tribe of the natives. The Farmington Indians penetra- -. 
ted as far to the west as their terror of the Mohawk would allow. In Goshen, 
says Rev. Mr. Powers, there is still pointed out the summer residence of a Far- 
mington Indian, who later than 1740, resorted to this place for the purpose of 
hunting every year. A large tribe consisting of some hundreds was supported 
from this forest and the streams, for more than a century. 

The forest was at last cleared and settled, and thus circumstances arose, which 
neither the whites nor natives had contemplated or could have foreseen. If the 
Indians of Farmington suffered injustice from the whites at all, it was not at the 
hands of the early settlers, but from the neglect of their descendants to furnish the 
supplies which the forest denied. When this occurred, the natives, retaining 
their inveterate and instinctive love of a hunting life, retired of choice to the 
forests of Berkshire county in Massachusetts, and to those of western New York. 
No promises or proffers of the whites would have detained them. 

Note J. p. 38. 

Additional notices of the settlement at the Great Swamp. 
(Furnished by Dr. Horatio Gridley.) 

The place of the first settlement was on what is still called " Christian Lane." 
On this stood the Seymour Fort which was an enclosure of palisades, within 
which were constructed the cabins, into which the inhabitants retired for rest at 
night. In front of tins fort, their well was excavated, sixteen feet in depth, which . 
still remains, and is known as a perennial spring of the purest water. 

Richard Seymour, the leader of the settlement, was killed by the fall of a tree, 
and vvas buried on a portion of his own land, which was afterwards used as a 
burial place. Previous to this, the inhabitants buried their dead at Farmington. 

The first meeting house stood a little in the rear of the dwelling house of the 
late Seth Deming. Some of the timber of which this house was built may still 
be seen, in an out-house, on the premises of Samuel Gilbert. The land was at 
that time owned by Joseph Steel. The house built by the society for the Rev. 
William Burnham, is still standing. Mr. Burnham was born in Wethersfield, 
and married a Miss Wolcott, of the same place. His second wife was a widow 
9 



66 

Buckingham, of Hartford, who died soon after their marriage. He had three 
sons and four daughters. His age at the time of his settlement was 28 years. 
The ordaining council, were Rev. Messrs. Timothy Woodbridge, and Thomas 
Buckingham, from Hartford; Rev. Stephen Mix, of Wethersfield, and Rev. 
Samuel Whitman, of Farmington. The members of the church, Dec. 10th, 
1712, were Rev. William Burnham, Stephen Lee and wife, Anthony Judd, 
Deacon, Samuel Seymour and wife, Caleb Cowles, Thomas North, Thomas 
• Hart and wife ; in addition to these on March 2, 1713, Isaac Norton and wife, 
Benjamin Judd and wife. 

Mr. Burnham continued as the pastor of the church, thirty-eight years, and 
died of dysentery then prevailing as an epidemic, Sept. 1750, aged 66. His 
successor was the Rev. Samuel Clark, who was ordained July 14, 1756, and 
died 1775. He was succeeded by Dr. Benoni Upson, who was settled April 
21st, 1779, and died Nov. 13th, 1826. His successor, Rev. Royal Robbins. was 
settled June, 1816. The church in 1750, which was after the separation of New 
Britain society, consisted of one hundred and seventy-four members. 

Jan. 1729-30, the society vote to build their second meeting house. In 
Sept. 1730, " voted to determine the controversy in said society about a place 
for a meeting house by lot." The conditions of the lot were then agreed upon, 
and then, " after due caution given by the Rev. Win. Burnham, pursuant to the 
above written votes," the lot was cast and it fell on the south-west corner of John 
Root's lot. At the next meeting, the question was proposed, " whether the par- 
ticular place upon which the lot lately drawn by us, to determine the place of 
our meeting-house, fell, ought to be accounted by us as the place which Cod in 
his providence points out to us now to build our meeting-house upon, consider- 
ing how the whole affair of said lot was managed from first to last." It was then 
J agreed by vote to call in the worshipful James Wadsworth and the Rev. Nathan- 
iel Chauncey of Durham, and the Rev. Samuel Hall of Cheshire, as a council to 
resolve the question, &c. The council resolved that the place on which the lot 
fell, was "the place that God in his providence points out to them to build their 
meeting-house upon." 

Another council was called viz. Rev. Mr. Steven Mix, Mr. Samuel Whitman, 
Mr. Timothy Edwards, Mr. Nathaniel Chauncey, Mr. Jonathan Marsh, Mr. 
Samuel Whittelsey, and Mr. Samuel Hall, to resolve the same question, who 
resolved that the lot " ought to be accounted by the whole society binding to 
their consciences, there to build the meeting-house where the lot fell ; and do ad- 
vise that in a tender regard to the honor of God, and for peace's sake, their meet- 
ing-house be built where the said lot fell, that they may avoid all danger of being 
involved in guilt." 

After this, application was made to the Legislature who decided the question 
iu 1732, by ordering the meeting-house to be erected with all convenient speed, 
in Deacon Thomas Hart's home lot. 

Dec. 7, 1737, it was agreed by vote that the society's committee shall at the 
society's charge, provide a suitable drum and procure some meet person to beat 
the drum on Sabbath days for the year ensuing, and also to provide an hour- 



G7 

glass with a suitable frame for it, and put them on the pulpit in the meeting- 
house. 

Jan. 27, 1720-21. " Voted and agreed that the meeting-house should be seated, 
that the rules in seating the meeting-house which the now mentioned committee 
shall attend to in their work are as followeth ; viz. age and the list, and whatso- 
ever else tends to make men honorable." " Also voted and agreed that the fore- 
seats in the square body in the meeting-house of this society shall, for the time to 
come, be equal in dignity with those seats called the fore-pews, and that the pews 
next to the east door shall be equal in dignity with those called the hind or second 
pews." 

The physicians of Kensington have been James Hurlburt, Josiah Hurlburt, 

Winchell, Amos Gridley, Joseph Wells, Sylvester Wells, James Percival, 

Josiah M. Ward, Caleb H. Austin, Henry C. Hart, Miles Francis. Dr. James 
Hurlburt was a most celebrated physician, and has been ranked with distin- 
guished European physicians, in extent of medical knowledge. The two Drs. 
Wells were both eminent; Dr. Percival the father of the poet had an extensive 
practice ; Dr. Ward was a superior physician; Dr. Hart died young, but was a 
man of great promise in his profession. 

Note K. p. 39. 

Notices of New Britain Society. 

( The following facts ice re furnished by Dr. John R. Lee.) 

The first tenement erected within the present limits of this society, was built by 
Jonathan Lewis, near the present residence of John Ellis; another at about the 
same date about sixty rods north of the house of Col. Wright. Soon after, other 
individuals located themselves still farther north, near where I. E. Smith now 
resides; this for many years was called " the North End," and was the principal 
settlement or centre. Here were the first tavern and store, the former kept by 
landlord Smith, the latter by the late Elnathan Smith, father and sou. This part 
of the society was settled by families of Smiths, Lees, aud Judd. Later was 
commenced the settlement in what is now the village of New Britain, by the 
Lees, Norths, Judds, and Booths. 

Measures for building a meeting-house were commenced at the close of the 
year in which the society was incorporated, viz. 1754. The building was loca- 
ted on the ledge land east and south of the upper mill pond of Joseph Shipman, 
on the east side of the wood. In front was a triangular piece of ground formed 
by the intersection of roads ; it was open, and shaded by several large oak trees. 
This house stood till 1822, when the present house was erected. 

Dr. Smalley received £150 as a settlement; £50 as a salary for the three 
first years; afterwards £60, and twenty cords of wood. In 1763, his salary was 
increased to £90, which caused much opposition for many years. In 1807, he 
requested, on account of his age, that some other person might be settled, and 
he would relinquish his salary. He died June 1st, 1820, aged 86. Near the 



68 

close of 1809, Rev. Newton Skinner was settled as pastor. Towards the close 
of his ministry large additions were made to the church. He died in 1823. 
Rev. Henry Jones was ordained Aug. 1825, and dismissed in 1827. In 1829 
Rev. Jonathan Cogswell was installed, and dismissed in April, 1834. Rev. 
Dwight M. Seward was ordained in 1836. 

The Baptist church was organized in 1808. It consisted of but few members 
and there was no regular preaching or settled minister till 1830, when a meeting- 
house was built, and the congregation has since been respectable in its number. 

The Methodist church was organized in 1818, and its present house of wor- 
ship built in 1823. 

The Episcopal society was organized Aug. 1836, and a house of worship was 
erected the following year. 

The village of New Britain has been for a number of years distinguished 
for its manufactures. The manufacture of tin-ware was commenced in this 
\ society, not far from 1790, and at a subsequent period became quite exten- 
sive. It was introduced from the neighboring society of Worthington, to 
which place in 1780, a Mr. Patterson, a native of Ireland emigrated, and 
commenced the manufacture of tin-ware this side the Atlantic. The manu- 
facture of brass has been one of the most extensive branches of business here 
conducted. The first articles of brass manufactured were sleigh-bells. This / 
business commenced in 1799, and in 1801 that of brass andirons and harness 
buckles of the same material. Ear-rings and knobs of gold and silver plate were 
made about 1806, and three or four years after, carriage and harness trimmings 
of silver plate, and gilded breast pins. The manufacture of articles from plated 
wire was first commenced by making hooks and eyes for cloaks. The wire was 
not at that time imported, but the silver was plated upon bars of copper and 
these were rolled down and drawn into wire by manual labor. The hooks and 
eyes have been till recently made by females ; the smaller kinds are now turned 
off by machinery, at the rate of two per second. Besides the articles already 
named, various others have been made here, such as gilded beads, glass bead 
work, India rubber webbing, suspenders, neck stocks, door locks, names, spoons, 
jewelry. In 1836 there were forty-five factories, 700 hands employed and about 
850,000 dollars invested in the various kinds of manufactures. This village is 
largely indebted for its prosperity and growth to the enterprise of Seth J. 
North, Esq. 



Note L. p. 39. 

Additional Notices of Southington. 

(For facts in relation to Southington I am indebted to Stephen Walkley, Esq.) 

The time when the first house was erected in this town, is not precisely 
known. The general opinion from tradition is that Samuel Woodruff" and his 
sons were the first settlers. They built on " Pudding Hill," half a mile east of 



69 

the present centre of the town. The names of other early settlers were Andrus, 
Barnes, Cowles, Clark, Dunham, Newell, Scott, &c. 

The ministers of the Congregational society have been Rev. Jeremiah Cur- 
tiss, who was ordained Nov. 19th, 1728, and dismissed 1755 ; Rev. Benjamin 
Chapman, ordained March 17,1756, dismissed Sept. 28,1774; Rev. William 
Robinson, ordained Jan. 13, 1780, dismissed April 24, 1821 ; Rev. David L. Og- 
den, ordained Oct. 31,1821, dismissed Sept. 13,1836; Rev. Elisha C. Jones, 
ordained June 28, 1837. Their first meeting-house stood about a mile north of 
the present house, the second near the present house. It was erected in 1757. 
The present meeting-house was completed in 1830. The number of communi- 
cants in the church is 556, which is the largest number belonging to any country 
church in the state. 

The Baptist church was constituted in 1739. The first minister, Rev. John 
Merriman, died in 1784, aged 89. For several years before his death Rev. John 
Wightman preached; from that time till 1799, Rev. Gorton Bates and others. 
From 1799 till 1802, Rev. Nehemiah Dodge ; Eliada Blakesly till 1811 ; Rev. 
Samuel Miller till 1815 ; Rev. David Wright till 1819. From that time they had 
preaching only occasionally till 1827, when Rev. Irenus Atkins commenced 
preaching and continued till April, 1839. Their first meeting-house was erected 
in 1792; their second in 1833. The church consists of about 170 members. 

The Episcopal society originated about 1790. The frame of a small edifice 
was raised in 1791, but not finished till some years after. It was consecrated 
July 18, 1829, by the name of Trinity church. The society never had a settled 
clergyman. 

The principal men who in former times transacted public business in and for 
the town were Jared Lee, Thomas Hart, Jonathan Root, Josiah Cowles, Asa 
Bray, John Curtiss, and Timothy Clark. Rev. Levi Langdon, Levi Hart, Rev. 
Gad Newell, Hon. Jonathan Barnes, Hon. Samuel Woodruff, Rev. Whitefield 
Cowles, Rev. Pitkin Cowles, Rev. Josiah B. Andrews, Rev. Elisha D. An- 
drews, and several others, natives of Southington, graduated at Yale College. 
Prof. Edward Robinson, distinguished in this country as an oriental scholar and 
traveller, is a native of Southington, and son of Rev. William Robinson. He 
graduated at Hamilton college. 

The ancient physicians of Southington, were Thomas Skilton, Robert Kin- 
caid, Theodore Wadsworth, and Mark Newell. 

Diseases. The old lung fever and camp distemper prevailed formerly ; in 
later times, typhus, bilious and intermittent fevers, scarlet fever, pulmonary 
affections. In one or two instances fevers have prevailed which have proved 
very fatal, for which physicians have been troubled to find a name. 

The manufacture of tin ware was introduced about 1795, and extensively 
prosecuted for a number of years. A patent for the machines employed so ex- 
tensively in the manufacture of tin ware is owned in this town, and an establish- 
ment in operation which supplies the greater portion of the United States and 
the British provinces. When the people of New England turned their attention 
to manufactures under the administration of Jefferson, Southington engaged in 
the manufacture of buttons, combs, and spoons; since that time, lasts, awl hafts, 



70 

bellows and brushes, andirons and other articles of brass, saws, ivory combs, &c. 
have been manufactured here. Water lime or Roman cement is prepared in 
the eastern section of the town, in considerable quantities. 



Note M. p. 39. 

Additional Notices of Bristol. 
(The following facts were furnished by Tracy Peck, Esq.) 

The individuals who commenced the settlement of Bristol in 1727, were Ne- 
hemiah Munross from Lebanon, John Brown from Colchester, Nathaniel Mes- 
senger from Hartford, Ebenezer Barnes, Dan Brownson, and Benjamin Buck 
from Farmington. This number was increased by additional emigrants from 
Farmington, Wallingford, Berlin, &c. 

Dec. 2, 1745. It was voted in the society's meeting " that we woidd begin to 
build a meeting-house forty feet long and thirty feet wide." 

April 21, 1746. It was voted, " that Ebenezer Barnes, Caleb Matthews, Heze- 
kiah Rew, Joseph Burton, Stephen Barnes, Stephen Brooks, Josiah Lewis, and 
Abner Matthews should lead by turns in divine service, when we are destitute 
of a minister." 

On the 6th and 7th days of Oct. 1746, a stake with stones was set by a commit- 
tee from the General Assembly, around which the sills of the first meeting-house 
were to be placed. This stake was placed about fifty feet east of the site of the 
present Congregational church. 

Rev. Samuel Newell of Southington was ordained Aug. 17, 1747. The soci- 
ety built a house for him thirty-eight by twenty-three feet, with a " lean-to" 
against the rear, twenty by six feet. It was erected in 1748, and stood on the 
site of the house now occupied by Dr. J. W. Pardee. The first Congregational 
church was erected in 1747, and was forty by thirty feet ; the second was erected 
in 1770, and was sixty-five by forty-five. The stake was fixed about six feet west 
of the former meeting-house then standing. The present Congregational 
church was erected in 1831, and is seventy-two feet long and forty-eight wide, 
and stands ten feet west of the former meeting-house. 

Rev. Mr. Newell died Feb. 10, 1789. He was " a gentleman of good genius, 
solid judgment, sound in the faith, a fervent and experimental preacher, of un- 
affected piety," &c. Rev. Giles H. Cowles was ordained Oct. 17, 1792, and 
dismissed May 24, 1810. Rev. Jonathan Cone was ordained May 21, 1811, and 
dismissed March 19, 1828. Rev. Abner J. Leavenworth was ordained Dec. 
16, 1829, and dismissed Sept. 19, 1831. Rev. David L. Parmelee was ordained 
Feb. 29, 1832. The church was organized Aug. 12, 1747, and consisted of 
about twenty members. Hezekiah Rew and David Gaylord were chosen the 
first deacons. 

An Episcopal society was formed about 1753, which had preaching from a 
" church missionary." About 1760 a church was erected, which stood fifteen 



71 

rods north-east of the Congregational church. It was occupied till about 1790, 
when the society became extinct. The clergymen who were connected with 
this society were Rev. James Nichols, Rev. Mark Prindle, and Rev. Ashbel 
Baldwin. In Sept. 1834, a new Episcopal society was organized, and in 1835 
the present Episcopal church was erected, " Trinity church" by name. Rev. 
George C. O Eastman was the first rector of the church, and Rev. Joseph S. 
Covill is the present rector. 

The first Baptist meeting was holden at the house of Elam Caylord, Dec. 18, 
1798. In 1802, the society erected a meeting-house forty-two by thirty-two. 
In 1830, it was removed to give place to the present more valuable and costly 
house. The following is a list of the pastors of the Baptist church: Rev. Messrs. 
Daniel Wildman, Orra Martin, Isaac Merriman, Henry Stanwood, William 
Beutley, Orsamus Allen, Francis Havvley, Simon Shailor. 

April 30, 1834. A Methodist Episcopal society was formed and in the autumn 
of the same year they erected the present Methodist church, fifty-four by forty. 
The following is a list of the preachers : Rev. Messrs. Albert G. Wickwire, 
Chester W. Turner, Harvey Husted, Edward S. Stout, Parmelee Chamberlain- 

The following is a list of the physicians of Bristol, Josiah Hurlburt, Dr. 

Smith, William Scovill, Dr. Camp, Joseph Roberts, Josiah Holt, Titus 

Merriman, Dr. Mosely, Miles C. Francis, Jared W. Pardee, Charles By- 

ington, Eli T. Merriman, Henry A. De Forest, Joseph W. Camp. Previous to 
1794, the prevailing diseases were generally high toned and inflammatory; for 
about forty years following 1794, they were typhoid diseases of a low grade ; 
since that period, the same fevers have been of a higher tone. 

The following practising attornies have resided in Bristol : Elihu Gridley, 
Calvin Butler, William Knight, John G. Mitchel, and Henry A. Mitchel, Esq'rs. 

In the war of the revolution, Moses Dunbar, who had married in New Cam- 
bridge, and there resided, went to the British, received a captain's commission, 
and privately enlisted soldiers to join the enemy. He was taken in this town, 
committed for trial and afterwards tried, condemned and executed at Hartford. 

There is found in Bristol, vitreous copper, variegated copper, green malachite, 

\ red sand stone, resembling in fineness of grain and the character of its grit, the 

English New Castle stone, used for grinding edge tools ; the true soapstone, 

porcelain clay, decomposed feldspar, rutile, &c. A copper mine has been 

wrought near its eastern line for several years, with promising success. 

Bristol has been distinguished for many years past as a manufacturing town, 
and its population and wealth have rapidly increased from this source. In 1836 
there were sixteen clock factories in operation, in which nearly one hundred 
thousand wooden and brass clocks had been manufactured in a year. 



72 

Note N. p. 41. 

Additional Notices ok Burlington. 

( Tlie folloicing facts were furnished by William Marks, Esq.; tlie biographical 
sketches by Simeon Hart, Esq.) 

Mr. Strong built his house near the present residence of Joshua Moses. The 
first settlements in this town after that of Mr. Strong were made in the western 
portion, by families of the name of Lewis, Wiard and Yale ; the second house 
was erected near the present residence of Salmon Gridley. The south-western 
portion of the town was settled by families from Cheshire, of the names of Smith 
and Bunnel; the south-eastern portion by Hart, from Southington, and the 
north by Pettibone, from Simsbury. The first settlers came from different towns, 
and settling upon the borders of the town, in the neighborhood of older settlers in 
the adjoining towns, did not form much acquaintance with each other till after 
several years. This circumstance, together with the fact that the central parts of 
the town are hilly, has led many of the inhabitants to attend upon religious wor- 
ship in the neighboring societies. The settlers were many of them from Rhode 
Island, and many from New Haven county. Twenty years since there were 
more inhabitants in Burlington than in Bristol. 

The Congregational church, when first organized, consisted of twenty-six 
members; the last surviving member of this number died but a few years since, 
at an advanced age. Rev. Mr. Miller was twenty-two years old on the day of 
his ordination. He relinquished his salary, and ceased his active labors in Dec. 
1821, and died July 21, 1831, aged 69. The latter part of his life, he was a sad 
spectacle to those who had known him in his prime, through the frightful ravages 
of epilepsy. Rev. Erastus Clapp, of Southampton, Mass. was ordained his 
colleague, Jan. 1, 1823; he was dismissed Dec. 10, 1828. Rev. Erastus Scran- 
ton, previously pastor in North Milford society was installed Jan. 14, 1830, and 
dismissed 1839. 

The first meeting-house was forty by thirty-six feet. It was occupied first in 
the autumn of 1783. In 1803 the society commenced a new edifice ; they were 
assisted by a lottery granted by the General Assembly, which much delayed the 
completion of the house. It was dedicated Jan. 25, 1809. In 1836, it was taken 
down, removed and rebuilt of smaller dimensions. 

In 1799, thirty-two members were added to the church ; in 1800, twenty-three; 
in 1824, one hundred ; in 1832, thirty-four. 

The early settlers of this town from Rhode Island were Seventh-day Baptists, 
and they had worship earlier than the Congregationalists. Rev. Joshua Clark, 
of Hopkinton, R. I. came into the town in March, 1771, and preached about 
nine years. Aug. 26, 1780, the church was gathered of twenty members. Elder 
John Davis was their first minister, who was ordained by Rev. John Waxen, of 
Newport, R. I. He was a godly minister and died Aug. 29, 1792, aged 69. 
Rev. Amos Burdick was the second minister, who died in 1803, aged 63. Rev. 



73 

Amos Stillman succeeded him, who died 1807, aged 46. The church were 
greatly afflicted by his death, and never recovered from it. Several of the fami- 
lies belonging to it, have removed, others have united with other denominations, 
and the church and society are now extinct. They erected a meeting-house in 
1800, which is still standing. 

The "First-day Baptists" have had preaching in this town occasionally, since 
the close of the revolutionary war, usually at the meeting-house of the Seventh- 
day Baptists. From 1825 to 1835, preaching was had once in two weeks at this 
place, and a Baptist church was formed in connection with a church in New 
Hartford. 

Soon after the close of the revolutionary war, two Episcopal clergymen of the 
name of Blakesly, preached in the south-west part of the town; after them the 
Rev. Mr. Nichols, about 1790. A new Episcopal church was erected in the 
north-east corner of Plymouth; while it was under the care of Rev. A. V. Gris- 
wold, now bishop of the eastern diocese, many families from Burlington attend- 
ed upon his ministry. Several families still worship there. 

The itinerant ministers of the Methodist connexion from the Litchfield circuit, 
visited this town as early as 1787. In 1788 a class was formed, of which Abra- 
ham Brooks was the first member. Till 1816, there was usually Methodist 
preaching once in two Sabbaths. In 1816, Burlington was made a circuit. 
From 1788 to 1800, the place of preaching was the school-house in the south- 
west district, dwelling houses in that vicinity, and a grove in the summer. From 
1800 to 1814 it was in the " Bumiel house" fitted up for the purpose. In 1814, 
a meeting-house was erected near the burying ground in the second district. In 
1835 it was taken down, removed and rebuilt in a modern style, in the centre of 
the town. 

About thirty years since there was Universalist preaching, and a society form- 
ed. In 1833 or 1834, it was reorganized, and for a year or two there was 
preaching again. 

Rev. Pres. Humphrey, of Amherst College, and Prof. Elton, of Brown Uni- 
versity, are natives of this town. 

The physicians have been Joseph Roberts, Perez Mann, William Richards, 
Harvey Hills, Elijah Flowers, Aaron Hitchcock, Levi Gaylord, Samuel S. 
Brownson, Chester Hamlin, M. E. Todd, Edward Fields, Drs. Wade, Burwell, 
and Elton. 

The West-woods abounded in game ; deer were numerous, especially in the 
vicinity of north and south ponds. It has been said that the deer traversed a 
beaten path between the two. 

As early as 1763, Nathaniel Bunnel was found frozen to death on the West 
mountain, standing beside a tree with his gun in his hand. 

It is computed that one in seven or eight deaths in Burlington are of consump- 
tion. The spotted and typhus fevers prevailed to a considerable extent thirty 
years since. The " canker-rash" with fever has formerly raged to an alarming 
extent, sweeping away whole families. 

From Nov. 26, 1783 to Jan. 1809, the whole number of deaths was 470 ; the 

10 



7-4 

annual number varied from eighteen to thirty-six. From 1809 to 1836, the whole 
number was 530. 

Elizabeth Hitchcock died in 1807, aged one hundred years and eleven months. 
The whole number of sudden or untimely deaths has been unusually great, 
sixty-six in all. Of this number forty were men, and many of them the most 
active men in the town. 

Rev. Jonathan Miller, first minister of the Congregational church in Burling- 
ton, was born Nov. 26th, 1761; was educated at Yale College; was ordained 
Nov. 26, 1783, the day he was twenty-two years old, and continued in that rela- 
tion to his death, which occurred July 21, 1831. 

For a few years previous to his death, he was unable to discharge the duties of 
his office, in consequence of the failure of his mental faculties, and the loss of his 
reason. 

He was possessed of a strong, discriminating mind, and his discourses were 
often doctrinal, plain and pungent in their application. He was uniformly 
solemn and grave in his appearance in the pulpit, and stood high in the estima- 
tion of his brethren in the ministry, as a preacher, a divine, and counsellor in ec- 
clesiastical matters. 

He contributed to the pages of the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, and 
published some occasional sermons. He labored and preached much to happy 
effect in neighboring congregations, in the revivals of 1798 and 99, and was a 
burning and shining light in the candlestick where he was placed. 

Simeon Hart, Esq. was born at Southington, Dec. 29th, 1735, and removed 
to West Britain, a parish of ancient Farmington, about the year 1774. He was 
one of the early settlers of that section of the town, and took an active part in 
laying the foundation of the institutions now enjoyed. 

When Bristol, comprehending the parishes of New Cambridge and West 
Britain, was made a town, he was sent their first representative. He sustained 
for a number of years the office of justice of peace ; was. active in forming the 
first Congregational church in the parish, and was chosen one of its first deacons, 
which office he sustained till excused on account of feeble health. 

He lived an eminently useful life, and died instantly Jan. 12th, 1800; his wife 
died Jan. 11th, and they were buried together in the same grave. 

Simeon Hart, Jun. Esq. third sou of Simeon Hart, was born at Southington, 
Sept. 8th, 1763, and removed with his father to the parish of West Britain, now 
Burlington. Enjoying advantages for early education beyond most others of 
that period, he was prepared intelligently to perform the duties of a good citizen, 
and take a decided part in sustaining those institutions which his father had been 
instrumental in establishing. He was a firm friend of the Congregational socie- 
ty and church of which he was a consistent member, and labored efficiently for 
their prosperity. 

As an evidence of the confidence reposed in him by his fellow citizens, he was 
chosen town clerk eleven years in succession, and during the fluctuations of 
political parties, held the office of justice of peace for thirty or more years, until 
excused at his own request. 



Having served God aud Ins generation faithfully, he fell asleep Dec. 19th, 
1835, aged 72. 



Note O. p. 41. 
Additional Notices of Avon. 1 / 

The society of Northington is believed to have been incorporated about 1745. 

The first permanent settlers were Joseph Woodford, and North. 

The church was formed Nov. 20, 1751, of twenty -four members. Rev. Eben- 
ezer Booge was ordained Nov. 27, 1751. The society consisted of twenty-five 
or thirty families. Mr. Booge died Feb. 2, 1767, aged 51. During his ministry, 
there were sixty -two marriages, and two hundred and seventeen births ; after his 
death, before Mr. Hawley's settlement, thirty births. Baptisms one hundred 
and ninety-one ; after his death, twenty-eight. Members admitted to the church, 
forty-three. Deaths sixty-eight; after his decease, ten. 

Rev. Rufus Hawley was ordained Dec. 7, 1769 ; at that time the society con- 
sisted of about sixty families. Mr. Hawley died Jan. 6, 1826. 

Mrs. Sarah Woodford died about 1799 or 1800, aged 101 years, very quiet and 
cheerful in temper. 

Mr. Booge's salary was £50 and twenty cords of wood. Mr. Hawley's salary 
was $200 and twenty cords of wood. Rev. Ludovicus Robbins was ordained 
colleague pastor April 26, 1820 ; dismissed Jan. 30, 1822. Rev. Harvey Bush- 
nell was installed Jan. 14, 1824; dismissed Oct. 27, 1834. Rev. John Bartlett •. 
was installed Oct. 28, 1835. The second society in Avon was formed in 1818. 
Rev. Bela Kellogg was installed Nov. 3, 1819 ; dismissed Sept. 2, 1829. Rev. 
Francis H. Case was installed Dec. 22, 1830 ; dismissed April 28, 1840. Rev. 
Stephen Hubbell was installed Dec. 31, 1840. 

Note P. p. 42. 

At a general court held 1702, "the town of Farmington laboring under great 
difficulties in reference to the calling and settling of a minister among them, and 
other ecclesiastical concerns, certain of the inhabitants made their address to this 
General Assembly, praying for counsel and relief. In answer whereunto, this 
assembly doth order and direct them to seek counsel and help from the Rev. 
Elders, viz. Rev. Mr. Abram Pierson, Mr. James Noyes, Mr. Taylor, Mr. N. 
Russel, Mr. Samuel Russel, and Mr. Thomas Ruggles, or any five of them, 
whom this assembly doth direct to be helpful unto them, and (unless the said in- 
habitants shall agree among themselves, &c.) to nominate and appoint a minis- 
ter for them, and in case the minister so nominated and appointed will undertake 
this work, this assembly doth hereby order that said inhabitants of Farmington 
shall entertain him for one year, and also pay to him such salary as hath been 
usual and customary among them." The town officers were also appointed by 
the General court. 



76 

In 1704 the General court directed the same ministers as above to procure a 
minister for the inhabitants of Farmington "who are hereby ordered to receive 
him and to pay him as formerly until this court do order otherwise, or until they 
agree among themselves." 



Note Q. p. 42. 
Expenses of Meeting House. 

The present Meeting House in Farmington was built in 1771, in the best man- 
ner, and of the choicest materials ; an evidence of which is, that the outside cov- 
ering, first put on, (including the shingles) is yet sound and good. 

The steeple above the belfry was raised entire, where it has stood uninjured to 
the present day. 

The cost of the building, as by Society's old book was £1750 12 10£ 

Oct. 1771. The Society by the Rev. Mr. Timothy Pitkin, 20 00 00 

Decern. By the first sixpenny rate for building house, 352 13 \\ 

By the second do " for do 352 13 4J 

By the 4 penny " for do 235 2 9* 

By three individuals, 1 19 

Nov. 1772 By a rate of lsl on the pound, 748 11 2 

Balance, 39 13 2i 



£1750 12 10i 

At the request of the younger members of the congregation, during the winter 
of 1825-6, the pews were taken out of the gallery, and slips substituted in their 
place, at an expense of $232 42. 

During the summer of 1836, the Meeting House was still further altered and 
repaired, by removing the pews in the lower part of the house, and supplying 
their places with slips; the old pulpit was also taken away, and one of modern 
style built ; the aisles carpeted ; new windows were made, and covered with 
blinds on the outside ; horse sheds were built, and the green leveled and fenced, 
the whole expense of which was $3929 57 

About the same time a new bell was procured at an expense of 534 82 

$4463 39 



77 

Note R. p. 4.3. 
Notices of the History of the Church and Society in Farmington. 

( The Biographical Sketches in this Xotc, arc copied from the manuscripts of Governor 

Tread/well.) 

On the day of July, A. D. 1812, in the 85th year of his age, departed this 
\ life the Rev. Timothy Pitkin, who for thirty three years had served the first society 
in this town in the work of the gospel ministry. • 

He had a vigorous constitution, and through the greater part of his life enjoyed 
a good state of health ; and finally the lamp of life was extinguished, after he had 
attained to a good old age, not so much by the force of disease, as by a gradual 
but rapidly increasing decay, which, as the closing scene approached near, was 
attended with much pain, and at times with a mental weakness or partial derange- 
ment, yet so that he could recognize his friends, and his true situation, and could 
manifest his joy at the prospect of his speedy deliverance. 

Mr. Pitkin was a good classic scholar, and had acquired by reading and exten- 
sive acquaintance with gentlemen of information and science, a general know- 
ledge of men and things ; particularly of passing events both at home and abroad. 
He was a gentleman of polished manners and of a communicative disposition, 
which assemblage of qualities together with a sprightly air and manner, made him 
very engaging and instructive in conversation ; so that but few persons of taste 
ever left his company without having been entertained, and, if not owing to their 
own fault, improved. Besides being eminently pious, and knowing how to ac- 
commodate himself to the character and attainments of those with whom he con- 
versed, he was able to speak a word in season that would please, and either edify, 
or reprove, and he was very happy in so shaping his remarks, as to leave a savor 
of religion, or at least, a serious impression on the mind. 

When he commenced his ministry amongst us, he was received with open 
arms, and the people in their rapture did every thing but adore him, and for many 
years we thought ourselves, and all the societies far and near thought us, the 
happiest people in the world. 

He found the people honest and sincere, but unpolished and uncourtly; and 
his influence over them did more, probably, than any other cause, to improve and 
refine their manners so far as they have been improved and refined. His min- 
isterial visits were highly prized ; his addresses and prayers at funerals were 
affectionate and edifying. His prayers with the sick were solemn and searching. 
His sermons were not elaborately composed; little more than the heads and 
leading thoughts were committed to writing. They were usually filled up in 
the delivery. His enunciation was prompt and animated, his manner highly 
popular, his doctrine correct, his zeal fervent, his affections warm and flowing, 
and his love to the Saviour and the souls of men conspicuous. He delighted not 
in metaphysical disquisition or in logical arrangement. 

A popular address was his province. In this he delighted and in this he ex- 
celled. Hence there was want of variety in his sermons, which his many excel- 
lent qualities could not fully compensate. The reverse which took place some 



78 

years before lie resigned his ministry, was painful to hiui, and his people. Ano- 
ther generation had arisen which knew not Joseph. They regarded him indeed 
with affection ; still Mr. Pitkin saw or thought he saw, a wide difference between 
that affection and the admiration of the former generation. For a time he gave 
up his salary and continued his labors. The voluntary contributions made him 
by the people were small. This confirmed him in opinion that a coldness had 
taken place, and that bis usefulness among them was at an end. A council was 
called ; he urged before them his want of health and that he had no further pros- 
pect of being useful here, and requested to be dismissed from his people. The 
society opposed, but the council complied with his request, and dismissed him. 
Since that time Mr. Pitkin preached occasionally in various places, but for 
the most part has lived retired. He has however, been very useful in praying 
with the congregation in the absence of a minister, in visiting and praying with 
the sick, in attending funerals, in praying and expounding the scriptures at con- 
ferences, in conversing with, and assisting and counselling such as were under 
religious concern, and in other pious endeavors to promote the interests of reli 
gion among us. On the whole his life was dignified and useful, his death was 
peaceful, and his memory will be blessed. 

Mr. Pitkin was succeeded by the Rev. Allen Olcott, who was ordained, Jan- 
uary, 1787, and dismissed August, 1791. 

Mr. Olcott was a gentleman of liberal education and good acquirements. He 
was an honest and sensible man, and a sincere and humble christian ; but his 
first introduction here was under unfavorable auspices. No one at first looked 
upon him as Mr. Pitkin's successor. He had too long stood as a candidate for the 
ministry to enjoy a fresh reputation. On trial, however, he approved himself a 
workman that needed not to be ashamed, and exhibited a maturity in knowledge 
and grace that attracted general notice and respect. In fine he so far exceeded 
his public and vulgar reputation, that he enlisted even the prejudices of most of 
the people in his favour, and was ordained and settled here as a minister of the 
gospel, but amidst strong opposition, 

As a preacher he was quite respectable in the view of discerning men. His 
prayers were comprehensive, concise and appropriate. His sermons were ot 
the same character. They were carefully and neatly composed ; each one had 
a unity in design and execution. He drew the attention to some prominent idea 
suggested by the text, which he unfolded and applied. His design was, to leave 
upon the mind the strongest impression, and not to weaken its force by saying 
all that might be said from the words. Accordingly he was always able to bring 
out of his treasures things new and old. But still he was in several respects the 
direct contrast to his immediate predecessor. He wanted dignity in his manners, 
he was diffident of himself ; in mixed company, constrained in his behaviour, ap- 
parently oppressed with a sense of inferiority, unsociable and absent in mind. In 
select society he enjoyed himself, and pleased and instructed his friends. Hence 
he studiously shunned mixed company, and the society of his opposers, as far at 
least as his essential duties would permit ; and attached himself too much to a 



79 

private and friendly circle. This was the result of his feelings, probably, rather 
than of his judgement, but it operated against him. 

Under these feelings he could not assume an open and free behaviour towards 
all his parishioners as their spiritual father, but, on the contrary, laid himself too 
open to the charge of partiality, which his opposers brought against him. On 
the whole, though a friend to his people, and desirous of advancing their best 
good as their minister, his conduct, resulting from a natural rather than a moral 
defect, was so far from conciliating the opposition, that it exasperated it and ren- 
dered it formidable and incurable. Had there been more self-possession in him, 
and more candour in judging of real merit in them, the connection between Mr. 
Olcott and this people might have been lasting and a mutual blessing ; but in the 
existing state of things his dismission was indispensable. 

Mr. Olcott, on his dismission, retired to his family mansion at Orford, and spent 
the remainder of his days while health remained, in supplying the pulpits of the 
neighboring congregations as occasion presented, and in attending to the man- 
agement of his farm, and waiting upon his numerous and respectable friends, 
whom he received with kindness and hospitality, until the month of August in the 
year 1806, when he received a severe paralytic shock, from which he never re- 
covered. Enfeebled in body and mind, he spent the remainder of his days, look- 
ing out, and waiting for the messenger of death, which, in another similar shock 
approached and finished his course. 

,- 
Mr. Olcott was succeeded by Rev. Joseph Washburn, who was ordained May v 

7, 1795, and died at sea Dec. 25, 1805. 

Mr. Washburn was eminently qualified by nature, education and grace, for the 
work of the gospel ministry. His sermons were elaborated with careful study, 
and delivered with much solemnity and affection. His subjects were well adapt- 
ed to the existing state of things. He judged accurately of the circumstances of 
time, place and occasion. His style was correct, and his manner of speaking 
graceful, but without studied ornament. His labours were incessant. What 
time he could redeem from severe study was applied in catechising the children, 
and visiting his people. His conversation was edifying and his manners easy 
and conciliating. The persons with whom he conversed, he generally found 
friendly or made them so. He was kind, open-hearted, liberal to the poor, and 
hospitable to strangers. He was meek under provocations, patient under suf- 
ferings, alive to his own imperfections, and as ready to confess his faults as to 
forgive others. He was disinterested in an uncommon degree, not regarding 
his worldly embarrassments. He loved his people and was beloved by them ; 
he loved his work and was successful. Through God's blessing on it, great ad- 
ditions were made to the church during his ministry. He found a watery grave, 
but his memory is entombed in the hearts of his jieople. He rapidly declined 
with a pulmonary consumption, brought on him, as was supposed, by his intense 
labours in the service of his people, and being advised by his physicians to take a 
journey to the southward for the benefit of a milder air during the then approach- 
ing winter, died at sea on his passage from Norfolk to Charleston, on the 25th 



SO 

day of December, A. D. 1805, and his remains were committed to the bosom of 
the deep. 

Rev. Noah Porter was ordained the Pastor of this church, Nov. 5, 1806. 

The church has at several periods of its history been favored with large acces- 
sions to its numbers as the fruits of a marked attention to the subject of religion, 
by the blessing of the Spirit of God. Not many years since, there were members 
of the church, who united with its communion, as fruits of the revival which pre- 
vailed throughout New-England, near the middle of the last century. Some are 
now living, who can speak of the revival in 1784. particularly on the Great Plains, 
near the close of Mr. Pitkin's ministry. Another such season commenced under 
the preaching of Dr. Griffin, and continued under that of Mr. Washburn, in 
1794 and 5. One more general throughout the community, occurred in 1799, 
and blessed most of the churches in this vicinity. In 1821, there was a revival 
of uncommon power, and there were added to the church as fruits of it, upwards 
of two hundred and thirty persons. Since that time there have been revivals 
less general in their influence, in consequence of which there have been added 
to the church in 1827, twenty-seven persons : in 1829, thirty-seven; in 1831, 
thirty-six; in 1834, forty-one ; in 1838, eighty-eight; and in 1840, twenty-two. 

Before 1795, no catalogue was made of the members of the church, that has 
been preserved. It appears from a memorandum made by Rev. Mr. Pitkin, 
that from 1752 to 1758, there were, 

Marriages, ....... 047 

Baptisms, 485 males, 43G females, ----- 921 

Deaths, males, adult, 123; youth, 36; children, 23; infants, 85; 

" females, adult, 119; youth, 19 ; children, 37 ; infants, 71— total, 513 

In 1795, there were 115 members of the church. From that time to Jan. 1, 
1841, there have been added to the church, 1010 members, of whom 390 remain. 

In March, 1840, forty-two were dismissed to constitute the second Congrega- 
tional church in Farmington, or the first church in Plainville. 

The present town had till 1825, been one Ecclesiastical Society or Parish, with 
no house of worship, church or religious teacher besides the Congregational. 
In that year a Methodist society was formed, and in 1834 their house of worship 
was erected in the center of the town. For a number of years, Congregational 
worship has been maintained in the North-west part of the town, now called 
Unionville ; but no church has as yet been organized. 

In 1810, Mr. Solomon Langdon gave two thousand dollars to the Ecclesiasti- 
cal Society, as a fund for the suijport of the gospel. In 1820, he gave in addi- 
tion, five hundred dollars, on condition that the society would increase the amount 
to ten thousand dollars ; which was accomplished. In March, 1823, he made 
another subscription of three hundred dollars, to increase the fund to twelve 
thousand dollars. In his will, after certain bequests, he left to the society the re- 
sidue of his estate, amounting to some thousands of dollars. These bequests were 
the fruits of his own industry. He died May 10, 1835. 

The church and society have both been harmonious and peaceful in their 



81 

movements, and have been to an unusual degree, exempt from painful and dis- 
tracting division. Two periods of less than ten years each, have been periods of 
division; the one at the commencement, the other near the close of the last cen- 
tury. Besides these seasons, the history of the church and society, is a history of 
peace and union, under pastors honored and beloved. During the distraction 
that attended the revivals of 1740, rending so many churches and societies, there 
was little or no disturbance in this town. One family alone became New Lights, 
and severed themselves from the church as not standing on the foundation of the 
gospel. The practice of " the Half-way Covenant" was disused about 1770, with 
no serious difficulty, and no painful results. The causes of this singular peace 
and union among the people have been two. They have generally confided in 
the good judgement and honesty of those who were prominent' in the society 
and the church, and this class of men among them have generally been worthy 
to be trusted. 



Note S. — p. 46. 
( Copied from Manuscripts of Gov. Treadwell, prepared in 1802 or 3.) 

This town, as its name imports, was at first, and indeed till a late period, wholly 
agricultural. Labour in the field was almost the only employment. Industry 
and economy have characterized the inhabitants ; labour has been held in repu- 
tation ; none, however elevated by office, or profession, have considered them- 
selves above it. Magistrates and ministers, when their appropriate business 
would permit, have laboured in the field. Indeed our magistrates have always 
been farmers; have been as laborious on their farms as others, and have derived 
their support from labour as much, almost, as the meanest citizen. They have 
been content to eat their bread in the sweat of their brow ; and it was honour 
enough to be esteemed the first among equals. But a very little of the labour on 
farms has been performed by slaves, and if a farmer had a slave, he constantly 
laboured with him, and taught him the habits of industry by his own example, as 
well as by his authority. Labour having been thus reputable among all classes of 
citizens, industry has been almost universal; and very few through idleness have 
become chargeable to the public. The master of the household has gone before 
his sons and domestics into the field in their daily labour, and if too remote, as 
usually happened, to return at noon, they dined together on their plain fare, 
under the covert of some thick shade, whereon the green grass they might enjoy 
the luxury of the free air, with more sincere delight than the greatest modern 
epicure at a civic feast. While the men have been thus employed in the field, in 
raising the materials for food and clothing, the women have been no less industri- 
ous in the domestic circle, in rearing the tender branches of the family, and in 
dressing food for the table. The careful matron has been accustomed to " seek 
wool and flax and work willingly with her hands ; she layeth her hands to the 
spindle and her hands hold the distaff." On Monday they have been employed 
in perfect dishabille, in washing their linen in their houses, and when this is done, 

11 



82 

at about the middle of the afternoon, they assume their neatest appearance, and 
are the perfect contrast of what they were in the morning, prepared to visit or to 
receive company. The brothers of the family returning from their daily labours, 
towards evening, covered with sweat and dust, and finding their sisters neatly 
dressed, and enjoying the cool shade, are led sometimes almost to repine at their 
happy lot ; but these feelings are corrected when they reflect, that their sisters are 
employed more hours in the day, and that their labour when compared with 
their strength, is many times, more severe than their own. It is true, however, 
that the young daughters, who have much to expect from their appearance, find 
means to shift off" no small proportion of the drudgery of the family, on the fond 
mother ; who submits the more readily, because she feels that there are reasons 
for it, that have their weight; that she herself in youth has had the same indul- 
gence, and that they must submit to the like service in their turn. 

Our ancestors here, of both sexes, have, till of late, clad themselves in simple 
apparel, suited to their moderate circumstances and agricultural state. The men 
have been content with two suits of clothes, called the every-day clothes, and the 
Sabbath-day clothes. The former were usually of two sorts, those for labour, 
and those for common society. Those for labour in the summer were a check 
homespun linen shirt, a pair of plain tow-cloth trowsers, and a vest generally 
much worn, formerly with, but more modernly without sleeves; or simply a 
brown tow-cloth frock and trowsers, and sometimes a pair of old shoes tied with 
leather strings, and a felt hat, or old beaver hat stiffened and worn white with 
age. For the winter season, they wore a check blue and white woollen shirt, a 
pair of buck-skin breeches, a pair of white, or if of the best kind, deep blue home- 
made woollen stockings, and a pair of double soled cowhide shoes, blacked on 
the flesh side, tied with leather strings ; and, to secure the feet and legs against 
snow, a pair of leggins, which, for the most part, were a pair of worn out stock- 
ings, with the bottom and toe of the foot cut off, drawn over the stocking and 
shoe, and tied fast to the heel and over the vamp of the shoe ; or if of the best 
kind, they were knit on purpose of white yarn, and they answered for boots on 
all occasions ; an old plain cloth vest with sleeves, lined with a cloth called drug- 
get ; an old plain cloth great coat, commonly brown, wrapped around the body, 
and tied with a list or belt; or as a substitute for them, a buck-skin leather waist- 
coat and a leather apron of tanned sheep-skin fastened round the waist, and the 
top of it supported with a loop about the neck, and a hat as above, or a woollen 
cap drawn over the ears. 

For ordinary society in summer, they were clad in a check linen homespun 
shirt and trowsers, or linen breeches, white homespun linen stockings, and cow- 
hide single soled shoes, a vest with sleeves usually of brown plain cloth, a hand- 
kerchief around the neck, a check cap, and a hat in part worn. 

In winter, they were clad as above described for winter, excepting that they 
assumed, if they had it, a better great coat, a neckcloth and a hat that might be 
considered as second best. Their Sabbath day suit for winter was like that last 
mentioned, excepting that their stockings were commonly deep blue, their leather 
breeches were clean and of a buff colour, they added a straight-bodied plain coat 
and a white holland cap, and sometimes a wig with a clean beaver hat. For the 



83 

summer, it was a check holland shirt, brown linen breeches and stockings, single 
soled cow hide shoes with buckles, a plain cloth and sometimes a broadcloth and 
velvet vest, without sleeves ; the shirt-sleeves tied above the elbows with arm- 
strings of ferreting of various colours, a white holland cap or wig, and beaver 
hat; and on thanksgiving days, and other high occasions, a white holland shirt 
and cambric neckcloth. 

The women have been, till within about thirty years past, clothed altogether 
in the same style, with a moderate allowance for the taste of the sex. A minute 
description will not be attempted ; a few particulars will characterize the whole. 
They wore home-made drugget, crape, plain cloth and camblet gowns in the 
winter, and the exterior of their under dress was a garment lined and quilted, ex- 
tending from the waist to the feet. Their shoes were high-heeled, made of tan- 
ned calf-skin, and in some instances of cloth. In the summer they wore striped 
linen and calico gowns, cloth shoes and linen miderdress? and every young lady 
when she had attained her stature, was furnished with a silk gown and skirt if her 
parents were able, or she could purchase them by dint of labour. Their head 
dress has always occupied a great share of their attention while in youth ; it has 
always been varying, and every mode seems, in its day, the most becoming. 
Within the period just mentioned, the elderly women have worn check holland 
aprons to meeting on the Sabbath, and those in early life, and of the best fashion, 
were accustomed to wear them in their formal visits. 

The same simplicity has been conspicuous in their diet, their houses and their 
furniture. Equipage they had none ; pleasure carriages and sleighs were un- 
known. In attending the public worship, or in short excursions, a man usually 
rode with a woman behind him, mounted on a pillion; andeven to this day, this 
practice is not wholly laid aside. 

The people of this town, as farmers, have had some advantages above most 
of their neighbours, but they have their disadvantages; among which, their com- 
pact settlement is one. Two things induced this mode of settlement; fear of 
Indians, and a wish to place themselves in a situation convenient to improve the 
meadows. The inhabitants have their home-lots in the town plot ; their lots, 
as usually happens, in various parts of the meadows, distant from a quarter of a 
mile to nearly three miles ; and their pastures for their cattle and horses in per. 
haps an opposite direction, and as far or farther distant. In this situation, the 
time spent in taking the cows to pasture, and fetching their teams in the morn- 
ing, and going to their fields, in returning home, turning out their teams and 
fetching their cows at night, must be, in most cases, a considerable part of the 
day, which is worse than lost, and is more than saved by those who live on their 
farms in a central situation, 

Another disadvantage to the town as a farming town, is the late prevalence of 
a commercial spirit. Till within about forty years, a single retailer of imported 
goods with a small capital, sufficed for the town Of late years trade has greatly 
increased, and a greater capital is employed in it, than in any inland town in the 
state. That agriculture and commerce go hand in hand is true ; but it is equally 
true that farmers never flourish in a populous settlement where the commercial 
character predominates. The reasons are obvious. Commerce where it pre- 



S4 

vails creates riches ; riches introduce a taste for luxury in building, dress, furni- 
ture, equipage, &c. which agriculture can never support. The farmer is thrown 
into the shade ; he feels that riches, as the world goes, give pre-eminence. In 
homely dress and covered with sweat and dust, with weary steps returning from 
the field, he sees with pain the powdered beau rolling in his carriage, with horses 
richly caparisoned, and feels himself degraded, his cheerfulness forsakes him, if 
his ambition remains. He quits his humble employment, or flies the sight of 
objects which serve only to give him uneasiness. This effect is not so visible in 
the householders, but the misfortune is, their places as laborers are supplied by 
men of a different class, poor, dependent, of mean education, and too often 
vicious, and such as on emergency, will generally pull down, rather than build 
up society. Where riches are accumulated, equality is destroyed ; simplicity of 
manners is lost, never to return ; a different state succeeds ; there will be at once 
a display of magnificence by the rich, and of wretchedness by the poor; the 
rich and the rabble will always be found together in commercial and opulent 
towns. This change is equally visible in the female part of our families. The 
young ladies are changing their spinning-wheels for piano-fortes, and forming 
their manners at the dancing-school, rather than in the school of industry. Of 
course the people are laying aside their plain apparel, manufactured in their 
houses, and clothing themselves with European and India fabrics. Labor is 
growing into disrepute ; and the time when the independent farmer and reputa- 
ble citizen could whistle at the tail of his plough with as much serenity as the 
cobler over his last, is fast drawing to a close. The present time makes a revo- 
lution of taste and of manners of immense import to society ; but while others 
glory in this as a great advance in refinement, we cannot help dropping a tear at 
the close of the golden age of our ancestors, while with a pensive pleasure we 
reflect on the past, and with suspense and apprehension anticipate the future. 

Note T. p. 46. 

N Mr. Pitkin married the daughter of President Clap, of Yale College. When 
he brought home his wife, they rode in a sort of a phreton or four wheeled car- 
riage. The older and more respectable men of the town went out to meet their 
pastor and his lady, and escort them home. They were of course eagerly on 
the look out, for the first glimpse of the expected company. When the phaeton 
came in sight, one of the older men cried out, " I see the cart, I see the cart." 

Note U. p. 47. 

Additional Notices of Schools in Farmington. 

In 1815 a few individuals at their private expense, erected a building to be 
occupied as an academy, for instruction in the several branches of an English and 
classical education. This school was sustained for more than twenty years, with 
great ability and success, and it has been the medium of important blessings to 
the town, in securing to its population the advantages of a more complete educa- 



85 

tton, and also in elevating its intellectual, moral and religious character. Many 
hundred jjupils have enjoyed its advantages, from this town and others in the 
vicinity. It is at present superseded by a Higher Public School, which is sustain- 
ed by the union of the pupils of two adjoining school districts. 

The school-fund belonging to the first school society, arising from the sale of 
the highways and proprietary lands amounts at present to $9276,53. The town 
deposite fund, the entire annual interest of which is by vote of the town, devoted 
to the support of common schools, is $ 1832,41. 

The Union school district possesses in addition, a fund of $200, the bequest of 
the late Solomon Langdon. 

Strong interest has ever been felt in this town, in the cause of common 
schools, and the men most esteemed in the community have devoted themselves 
with an assiduous and ardent zeal to the interests of these schools as a means of 
intellectual and moral culture. This interest has never been interrupted by the 
vulgar jealousies of party contention, or the unseemly distractions of sectarian 
strife. 

Since the recent impulse has been given to the cause of common school edu- 
cation i:i this state, by the joint action of the Legislature and the Board of Com- 
missioners, this town has been behind no other in efficiently prosecuting the 
plans suggested for the improvement of these schools. The success which has 
already attended their efforts, not only furnishes a pledge of the future pros- 
perity of the town, but also a bright example of what may be done in other com- 
munities. 

Note V. p. 48. 
(Prepared by Rev. Noah Porter, D. D.) 

The Hon. John Treadwell was born in Farmington, Nov. 23, 1745. His 
parents, Ephraim and Mary Treadwell, were highly respected for their piety. 
Having finished his education at Yale College, where he was graduated A. D. 
1767, he pursued a thorough course of study in legal science, but such was his 
aversion to professional life, that he never offered himself for examination at the 
bar. In the autumn of 1776, he was chosen a representative of the town to the 
General Assembly ; and by successive elections from that time till 1785, he was 
continually, with the exception of one session, a member of the house. He was 
then elected one of the Assistants, and to that office was annually chosen till 1798, 
when he was appointed Lieut. Governor. In the autumn of 1809, on the de- 
cease of Gov. Trumbull, he was chosen by the legislature, to the office of Gov- 
ernor ; and by a renewal of the appointment at their session in May, he continu- 
ed in the discharge of the high duties of that office the following year. At this 
time he had been twenty years, judge of the court of probate; three years, judge 
of the county court; twenty years, a judge in the supreme court of errors ; and 
nineteen years, a member of the corporation of Yale College. The greater 
part of this time he was also one of the prudential committee of that corpora- 
tion, and took a zealous part in whatever pertained to the prosperity of the semi- 



s6 

nary. Among other public services, it also deserves particular mention that he 
had an early agency in negociating the sale of the New Connecticut lands, and 
in constituting from the sale, our school fund. Having, in connexion with 
others, accomplished that laborious and difficult trust, he was appointed one o* 
the board of managers ; and in this office was continued till 1810, when, by a 
different arrangement, it was superseded. He drew the bill for the application 
of the fund, and is probably to be considered more directly than any other person, 
the father of the system of common-school education in this state. In these 
various offices, his reputation was unsullied. He was known to act uprightly, 
and was generally acknowledged to act judiciously. Probably no man was 
better acquainted with the internal policy of the state ; and having begun his 
fostering care over it when it was in the cradle of its independent existence, and 
been almost exclusively devoted to its concerns, in offices so various, and some 
of them so important, for thirty years, he contributed to its order and improve- 
ment, ina degree which, in other periods and circumstances, would have been 
hardly possible for any man. In the church his labors were scarcely less impor- 
tant than in the state. In the church of Farmington, of which he became a mem- 
ber in the twenty-seventh year of his life, his counsels and example always, and 
more especially in several trying periods of its history, were exceedingly valued. 
More than twenty years he was a deacon of that church, and while adorned with 
the highest dignities of the state, he continued to perform the ordinary duties of 
that office. Of Ecclesiastical Councils he was a frequent and useful member. 
Of the Missionary Society of Connecticut, he was one of the original trustees; 
of these trustees he was the first chairman; and this station by successive ap- 
pointments, he continued to fill, till on account of advanced years, he declined a 
re-appointment. He was also one of the Commissioners who formed the Con- 
stitution of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and 
who devised the incipient measures for carrying into effect the important design 
of their commission. Of that Board he was the first President, and in that office 
he continued till his death. No magistrate of New England probably, since the 
time of Haynes and Winthrop, engaged a greater measure of confidence in the 
church, was more useful in it, or more venerated by its ministers. He was not 
a man of brilliant genius or extended erudition, or commanding elocution. He 
had no superior advantages of birth, of patronage, of personal attractions or 
courtly address. He had no peculiar power of delighting the social circle with 
the sprightliness of his fancy, nor of swaying public assemblies by the eloquence 
of his appeals. He was not, in the common import of the term, a popular man ; 
yet he had an intellectual and moral greatness which carried him superior to all 
obstacles in the path to eminence ; so that with no advantages above what thou- 
sands enjoyed, he united in himself in a perfection rarely found, the characters of 
a jurist, a civilian and a divine. In the ordinary scenes, as well as in the higher 
sphere of life, his piety shone with steady lustre. His attendance upon divine 
ordinances was steady and exemplary. The retired circle for prayer and Chris- 
tian conference, as well as the solemn assembly, could command his presence 
and engage his warm affections. Familiar as divine truth was to his contempla- 
tions, he was always entertained and often melted under the plainest and most 



S7 

unadorned exhibitions of it. He could safely appeal to all who knew him, that 
in simplicity and godly sincerity, not by fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, 
he had his conversation in the world. With serene hope in Christ, he died 
Aug. 18, A. D. 1823, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. 

Sketch of Prevailing Diseases in Farmington. 

(From manuscripts of Gov. Trcadiccll.) 

About the year 1729, a pleurisy of a very malignant type prevailed. It select- 
ed for its victims generally, stout athletic men, in middle life; not more than a 
third of those attacked, recovered. This was soon after followed by a fever, 
often attended with putrid symptoms and delirium, called " the long fever," 
which was protracted from twenty to sixty days before it formed a crisis. It 
prevailed three successive autumns ; many fell as its victims, and those who re- 
covered, held their lives long in suspense, and recovered very slowly. This w 7 as 
followed by sore throat, which attacked children and young people generally, 
and carried off some whole families of children, and among others that of Asahel 
Strong, Esq. This disease occurred in the autumn of 17*36. This was followed 
by distressing and fatal attacks " of worms," of which many children died. 

In the spring of 1751, a malignant pleurisy, similar to that of 1729, again pre- 
vailed, and seized upon men in middle life, and of a vigorous constitution. 
Asahel Strong, Esq. died much lamented. In the autumn of the same year, 
many died of the dysentery, and among them Rev. Samuel Whitman. 

In 1776, the dysentery prevailed ; in the course of the year there died in the 
first society sixty-one persons, and in 1777, forty-one persons, most of them of 
the dysentery. 

In 1798, the dysentery again prevailed, and proved fatal to many youths and 
some aged people. The only variation in the diseases of the last century that is 
remarkable, is the diminution of those which are highly inflammatory, and the 
increase of those occasioned by a disordered state of the bile. 

In March, 1808, a new and most fatal disorder appeared in this town, called 
" the spotted fever," and in its progress proved a terrible scourge to this people. 
It raged till June, 1809, with a slight intermission towards the close of 1808. 
Within that period there were about seven hundred cases, which required medi- 
cal aid, and most of the population weie slightly affected; scarcely a neighbor- 
hood escaped, whatever its locality or situation. The fever attacked old and 
young, male and female, healthy and feeble, though most of its victims were 
young women and children. In 1808, after the month of March, there died in 
the first society, fifty-two, twenty-seven of whom died of the fever. In 1809, 
previous to the month of June, thirty-seven died, most or all of the fever. The 
scene was awfui ; no tongue can tell the distress of the inhabitants ; the well 
were hardly sufficient to take care of the sick, who from the nature of the disease 
required unremitted attendance. No help could be obtained from abroad. The 
panic was so widely extended that for many months the roads were unoccupied ; 
but here and there a solitary traveller was seen, flying for his life to avoid conta- 



88 

gion. The funeral knell was silenced for fear of alarming the sick; meagre 
funeral processions were almost daily passing silent and slow to the grave. 
Every one yet well apprehended hourly the attack of disease and the arrest of 
death. 

The symptoms which attended the disease, were such as indicated the decay 
of the vital functions and the most successful mode of practice was by the em- 
ployment of stimulants, in order to sustain the action of the system till it should 
recover its natural tone. 

The faithfulness ofthe people of all conditions, and especially of the young in 
abiding by the sick, and in cheerfully exposing themselves through fatigue and a 
bad air to the fatal disease, is to be mentioned with honor. The attending phy- 
sicians, particularly Dr. Eli Todd and Dr. Solomon Everest, are worthy of much 
honor for their humane, painful and skillful services, during the whole scene of 
distress, and received the satisfaction of an approving conscience, and the appro- 
bation of a grateful people The hand of God in sending the disease is to be 
acknowledged with profound reverence, and in removing it with lively gratitude 

Historical Facts, <tc. prom the manuscripts of Governor Treaiavell. 

In 1802 and 3, there were manufactures in the town of Farmington, of the 
following articles: 

Checked and Striped Linen, 15000 yards per year. 
Hats, .--- 2500 
Leather in four establishments, 1500 sides, 500 skins. 
Tin ware in five shops, 200 boxes tin plate per year. 
Potash, three establishments, fifteen tons. 
Muskets, four hundred stands. 
Stephen Bronson manufactured the linen with enterprise and success; em- 
ployed foreigners to assist in weaving and dyeing. The yarn was spun in pri- 
vate families. 

Asa Andrus carried the art of preparing japanned ware to a high degree of 
perfection, and realized from his efforts considerable profit. 

In 1775, Hon. John Treadwell and Martin Bull engaged in the manufacture 
of saJt-petre, a material then needed in the preparation of gunpowder. They 
prosecuted the business with success till the French espoused the cause of the 
United States, when the demand for the article ceased. 

Emigration previous to 1802. 

Between 1783 and 1802, one hundred and forty-seven families emigrated from 
Farmington, besides a number of unmarried peisons of both sexes, in all about 
seven hundred and seventy-five individuals. The most of them settled in the 
states of Vermont and New York; " a few indifferent parts ofthe North West- 
ern Territory." 



89 

There had in 1802, but three of the inhabitants been convicted of high crimes ; 
one was executed for murder thirty -five years before ; two were sent to Newgate 
prison for a number of years ; they were all Indians. There were in 1802, 
fifteen paupers supported by the town, at an expense of $718. In that year, 
there were thirty free blacks in the town. The number of dwelling houses was 
four hundred and thirty-eight. (The town then included the present town of 
Avon.) 

Physicians of Farmington. 

(Furnished by Dr. Asahel Thomson.) 

Of the earliest physicians little is known except their names, and the fact that 
they enjoyed the confidence and respect of their fellow citizens. They were 
Drs. Hart, Judd, Porter, Stanley, Thomson and Wadsworth. Later we hear of 
a Lewis, Lee and Richards ; still later to about 1790, of Mather, Johnson, Hos- 
mer, and John Hart. 

Doct. Lewis, as it appears from anecdotes related of him, was a person of a 
very facetious humor, and was very acceptable to the people of the town as a 
man and physician. He resided here about 1730 — 1740. Dr. Ebenezer Lee 
lived here several years later, about 1760 — 1770, and was in all respects, a wor- 
thy, successful and acceptable physician, and so esteemed by the people of this 
town and vicinity. 

Dr. Timothy Hosmer, brother of Titus Hosmer, of Middletown, was born in 
West Hartford, and it is believed commenced his medical practice in this town, 
where he married and resided many years. He was endued with a genius of no 
common order, and had improved it by considerable reading and study. He 
possessed a prompt and ready wit, and a fund of facetious anecdote. He was 
distinguished by great affability and gentlemanly manners, and made himself 
very acceptable to all classes of people. His practice in this region was exten- 
sive. He served as a physician for some time in the army during the war of the 
revolution. On quitting the army he returned to this town, and resided here till 
about 1790, when he removed to the state of New York. He was there appoint- 
ed the first judge of the court of Ontario county. This office he did not long 
retain, being disqualified through habits of intemperance, contracted before he 
left Connecticut. 

Dr. John Hart was a native of Kensington, and came to this town at some 
time during the revolutionary war. Previous to this he served in the army as a 
surgeon. His practice in this town was chiefly in surgery. He continued here 
till about 1798, when, his health being impaired, he resolved upon a sea voyage, 
and entered the naval service of the United States, and soon after died at sea. 

Dr. Eli Todd came to Farmington in 1790, and continued here till the autumn 
of 1819, when he removed to Hartford, where he died in the autumn of 1833. 

Dr. Harry Wadsworth, a native of Southington, pursued a course of medical 
study with Dr. Todd, and commenced practice here in 1804. and died here in 
August, 1813. 

12 



N 



90 

Dr. Asahel Yale from Bristol, practised here from 1813 till 1817, when he 
removed into the state of New York 

Dr. Zephaniah Swift removed into this town from Winchester, in 1815, and 
resided here till 1831, when he removed to Hartford, where he remained till 
1834, when he removed to Bristol, and died there in the summer of that year. 

Dr. Eli Todd, the son of Michael Todd, an enterprizing merchant of New 
Haven, Connecticut, and Mrs. Mary Todd, a lady much and deservedly respect- 
ed for her intelligence and piety, was born in that city, in 1770. At an early 
age, he entered Yale College, where he graduated in 1787. Subsequently, after 
spending some time in the West Indies, he pursued a course of medical study, 
under the direction of Dr. Beardsley, an eminent physician of New Haven, and 
came to Farmington to enter upon the practice of medicine, in September, 
1790. He continued to reside in Farmington till October, 1819, when he re- 
moved to Hartford. On the establishment in that city of the Retreat for the In- 
sane, an object which he had long contemplated with high interest, and to which 
he contributed largely by his influence and exertions, he was selected as if by 
general consent, to carry into effect the benevolent plans of its founders, as its 
physician and superintendent. This situation he retained from the period of his 
appointment at its first organization, in 1824, till his decease in the autumn of 
1833. 

Dr. Todd was a man of rare mental endowments. He possessed in a high 
degree the various characteristics of superior genius. These he had improved 
by considerable reading and study, careful and extensive observation of men 
and things, and close, patient and unwearied thought and reflection. His intel- 
lect was strong and vigorous, capable of readily comprehending, mastering and 
illustrating any subject to which his attention was directed,— his judgment was 
profound, clear and discriminating,— his apprehension remarkably quick,— his 
memory strongly retentive,— his imagination and fancy brilliant and ever awake, 
and his taste delicate and refined, the source of much enjoyment to himself, and 
the means of much pleasure to others. His conversational powers were uncom- 
mon. Though unusually afl'able, and often inclined to sprightliness and gaiety 
in his intercourse with others, yet his mind was naturally of a highly philosophi- 
cal and speculative turn. Seizing upon any topic presented which particularly 
interested him, with ardor, and holding it with a firm and steady grasp, he would 
examine it thoroughly in all its aspects, and analyze it in a masterly manner; 
pursuing a train of close, connected and logical reasoning, and unfolding his 
conceptions in strong, precise and elegant language. On other occasions, 
when the subject required or admitted of it, he would give utterance to his sen- 
timents and feelings in a style vivid, bold and figurative, abounding in striking 
imagery, interesting and picturesque description or narrative, and lively sallies 
of wit and humor. No one on such occasions, could be long in his presence 
without being sensible of, or paying homage to, the vigor of his understanding 
and the brilliancy of his imagination. 

But while his rare intellectual powers inspired sentiments of respect and ad- 
miration, his moral and social qualities, the attributes of the heart, secured to 



91 

him the strongest attachment. Dr. T. was possessed of the most humane and 
benevolent feelings, — he delighted and seemed to participate in the happiness of 
all around him, — he was ever tenderly alive to the sufferings of others, and 
ready to contribute to their relief in every practicable way to the utmost extent 
of his ability; and was thought at times to have done so, through excessive sen- 
sibility, with an extravagant and misplaced generosity. Many who were his pa- 
tients or patrons can testify to his kind hearted sympathy in the sick-room, to the 
unwearied assiduity with which he watched at the bed-side of the sick, to his 
anxious solicitude to devise and adopt, as well as his ready ingenuity in contri- 
ving, every possible measure for their relief, and to the affectionate language 
and manner with which he aimed to allay their sense of distress, when it could 
not be at once removed. They can also bear testimony to his frequent out- 
pourings of heartfelt delight on seeing them relieved and restored again to the 
enjoyment of health. 

As a practitioner he long and extensively enjoyed the confidence of the com- 
munity in an euviable degree ; perhaps none of his cotemporaries in the State 
attained a higher rank. He evinced uncommon sagacity in investigating the 
causes, seats and nature of diseases, and was usually remarkably accurate in his 
predictions of the changes they would undergo, and of their terminations. He 
was extensively acquainted with the articles of the materia rnedica; most 
thoroughly so with the powers of those potent ones which he was most in the 
habit of employing, and knew well how skilfully to adapt his remedies to the 
particular state of the system, and how promptly to vary his course in accommo- 
dation to any change in the disease, however slight, which he was ever sure 
quickly to detect and justly to estimate. In the treatment of certain diseases he 
claimed to have made material improvements, particularly in the free and fre- 
quent use of emetics in acute pulmonary complaints, and the employment of 
large and liberal doses of mercury and opium, in certain disorders of the aliment- 
ary canal. The justice of this claim and the value of these improvements are 
believed to be indisputable. In the management of cases of insanity, perhaps no 
one has ever been more successful; and the Retreat under his superintendence, 
was raised to a rank second to none, perhaps superior to any other similar insti- 
tution on the continent. Of the high estimation in which he was held by his pro- 
fessional brethren, his appointment as physician to that institution, and his elec- 
tion as President of the State Medical Convention, and as a member of the 
Committee for nominating medical professors in Yale College, situations which 
he long retained, are satisfactory proofs. As a citizen he ardently loved his 
country and her republican institutions, — was distinguished for liis public spirit, 
and was ever ready to aid in any work of public utility. In his intercourse with 
society, his manners and general deportment were unusually courteous and 
gentlemanly ; he was ever frank, open-hearted and sincere, exhibited a high 
sense of honor, always despised what was mean and disingenuous, and was ever 
attentive to all the decorums of time, place and character. Though affable and 
condescending to individuals in all situations in life, and though he aimed, and 
with almost uniform success, to avoid giving offence, yet he was fearless and 



92 

independent in expressing his sentiments, and pursuing the line of conduct he 
chose to follow. 

In physical conformation, Dr. T. was of medium size, well-made and muscu- 
lar. In early life he possessed great bodily strength and agility, and delighted 
in all those exercises which called them into action. Dr. Todd was twice marri- 
ed, but left no children. 

IS T o biographical notice of Dr. Todd should be concluded without some refer- 
ence to his religious character Though born of pious parents, yet, till late in 
life, the Bible and the Christian religion are believed to have occupied little of his 
attention ; and he was generally reputed askejitic or Universalist. In 1825, his 
first wife died in the triumphs of faith, and on her death-bed urged and entreated 
him to attend to, and investigate the subject of religion, expressing herundoubt- 
ing conviction that if he would do so in the same thorough and impartial manner 
in which he examined other topics, the result would be most happy. In compli- 
ance with her dying request, he commenced the study of the Bible ; and by the 
blessing of God the effect proved as Mrs. T. had anticipated. All the donbts, 
difficulties and prejudices which had so long stood in the way of his embracing 
the Christian faith, were dissipated; and Dr. T. became a firm believer in the 
great doctrines of revelation, and a sincere and ardent disciple of Christ; and 
through the remainder of his life, and particularly during his last long and dis- 
tressing illness, enjoyed in a high degree the peculiar supports and consolations 
of the gospel. 

Sketch of the life of Elnathan Gridlev. 

( Prepared by Rcr. Xoah Porter, D. D.) 

Elnathan Gridley was the oldest son of Elijah and Hannah Gridley, of this 
town; was graduated at Yale College in the year 1820, and received his theolo- 
gical education at the Seminary in Andover. Massachusetts. Near the close of 
his preparatory studies in theology, he offered himself to the American Board, 
and was received as a missionary to the heathen. Having left the Seminar}', he 
performed an active and successful agency, in organizing committees and asso- 
ciations in his native State, auxiliary to the Board. After completing this ser- 
vice, he entered upon the study of medicine, to enlarge his usefulness as a mis- 
sionary. In vigor of constitution, ardor of pursuit, inflexibility of purpose, and 
daring heroism of enterprize, he had been distinguished from his early years. 
These endowments, directed as they were by a sound and well furnished mind, 
and chastened by Christian humility, meekness and zeal, marked him as one de- 
signed of God for distinguished usefulness. He was ordained on the 25th of 
August, 1825, in Boston ; embarked from the same place on the 16th of August, 
1826, with his face towards Jerusalem ; and after two months arrived at Malta. 
There it was decided by the missionaries present, that on account of the unset- 
tled state of things at Jerusalem, he should delay the prosecution of his mission in 
Palestine, and take up his residence, at least for a few months, at Smyrna ; for 
the special purpose of co-operating with the missionaries at Malta, in the pre- 



93 

paration and distribution of tracts, and in other evangelical labors, among the 
Greeks. To this work he accordingly devoted himself with his characteristic 
ardor, and in three months was not only able to converse with the citizens of 
Smyrna, in their own language, but began to preach to them in the public assem- 
bly. In June he went on a journey of thirty days, in prosecution of the objects 
of his mission, into the interior of the country, with the view of taking up his 
summer's residence at Cesarea, in Cappadocia; where he was seized with a 
bilious fever; of which, on the fifteenth day after the attack, and on the 27th of 
September, 1827, unattended by any Christian acquaintance, but amidst every 
kindness which friendship could afford, he died ; and there, not far from the 
spot where the ashes of Henry Martyn repose, the monumental stone, with his 
name and office inscribed, marks his grave. 

By the affectionate care of Abraham, a native Greek, of interesting character, 
and Mr. Gridley's faithful teacher and attendant, his grave is covered with a block 
of stone in which is inserted a marble slab, with appropriate inscriptions, in Eng- 
lish, Greek and Turkish ; of which a copy is subjoined. The Greek and the 
Turkish inscriptions are in the poetical form, in lines of fifteen syllables, of 
which the last rhyme with each other. 

The Inscription in English. 
REV. ELNATHAN GRIDLEY, AMER- 
ICAN MISSIONARY FROM THE 
UNITED STATES, BORN IN 
FARMINGTON OF CON- 
NECTICUT, 31 YEARS 
AND 55 DAYS OLD 
27 SEPT. 

1827. 

Translation of tlw Greek, made by Abraham. 

Here lies Elnathan Gridley, full of every virtue, 
Physician, divine Herald, and wise, very learned ; 
A shining star of the new world, which, with a great speed, 
Arose from the West and set in the East. 

Translation of the Turkish, by the same. 
Perfect, wise, well instructed Physician, and meek Herald of the Gospel 
Travelling the world, here I finished the great journey, 
In this tomb they confined me, the stranger called Gridley, 
Farewell, then, hereafter, all frivolous care. 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

AT THE 

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

OF THE 

SETTLEMENT OF FARMINGTON. 

NOVEMBER 4, 1840. 



I. READING OF SCRIPTURES AND PRAYER.— By Rev. E. Scranton. 

II. HYMN.— By Dr. E. P. Terry. 

O'er a wild and stormy ocean, 

Driven by oppression's rod, 
Finn of heart and strong of purpose, 

Trusting in a righteous God; 
Calm, though sad — depress'd, yet hoping — 

Distant from their native land, 
'Mid stern rocks and gloomy forests, 

See a band of Pilgrims stand. 

On they press through toil and danger, 

Naught can daunt their fearless zeal ; 
Sire and son, wife, mother, maiden, 

All, one common impulse feel. 
'Tis the will of God impels them, 

Scorning danger, toil, and dearth, 
Dwelling with the beast and savage, 

To attend a nation's birth. 

Heaven has blessed their holy purpose, 

Hist'ry tells the wondrous tale ; 
Peace, and joy, and smiling plenty, 

Through this mighty land prevail. 
He sustains who them transplanted ; 

Let us then, their children, raise 
To Jehovah's power and mercy, 

Pagans of unceasing praise. 



9G 



III. PRAYER.— By Rev. Dr. Porter. 

IV. SINGING.— "Happy the Land." 

Happy the land where lives and reigns 

Th' enlightened love ofliberty ; 
Where tyranny dissolves her chains, 

And bids th' exulting race be free. 

Happy the land where virtue dwells, 
With cheerful enterprise and health ; 

Where science all her lore reveals, 
And industry her stores of wealth. 

Happy the land where from above 
The rays of heavenly truth descend ; 

Where Israel's God his strength shall prove, 
And still the righteous cause defend. 

V. HISTORICAL DISCOURSE.— By Rev. Noah Porter, Jr. 

VI. HYMN.— By Rev. Royal Robbins. 

O'er these fair plains the years have rolled, 

Till twice an age its tale has told, 

Since first our sires, Heaven's favored race, 

Sought here their home and resting-place. 
The ages pass, but God remains, — 
We '11 praise him in our grateful strains. 

The day and scene, in history's page, 

Afresh our hearts and thoughts engage, 

When on this spot the Pilgrim band, 

In faith gave each to each his hand. 

The ages pass, but God remains, — 
Our Saviour God, o'er earth he reigns. 

Four score and four* our fathers were — 

A little flock, but strong in prayer ; 

Bright beamed their eye of faith and love, 

As fixed its gaze on things above. 

The ages pass, but God remains, — 
Our fathers' God, o'er heaven he reigns. 

The number of original proprietors in Farmington. 



97 

Now grown in numbers to a host, 
Whilst circling towns* their parent boast. 
We own with grateful hearts the care 
Which saved the flock from every snare. 

The ages pass, but God remains, — 

Our God and their's, o'er time he reigns. 

Sweet plains, with peace and plenty crowned! 
Once the wild native's hunting ground ! 
No trace ye bear of savage foes ; 
So changed — save where their bones repose. t 

The ages pass, but God remains, — 

Who works all changes, or restrains. 

Reap we the fruit of all their toil, — 

Our cheerful homes, our fertile soil, 

Our dear domestic altars, where 

We pour affection's hallowed prayer. 

The ages pass, but God remains, — 
Whom grace selects, his power maintains. 

Here freedom, laws, and justice live — 
Here schools their blest instruction give ; 
The Sabbath's holy rest is here, 
And temple-throngs to God draw near. 

The ages pass, but God remains, — 

Whom he transfers, he too sustains.}: 

Then will we hold in solemn trust 
Their chartered rights, as honored dust, 
And best their virtues shall proclaim, 
As on our hearts we bind the same. 

The ages pass, but God remains, — 

We '11 give him praise in endless strains. 

Time bears us on to where they rest 
In the long slumber of the blest; 
There may our dust in peace be found, 
When the last trump shall rend the ground. 

The ages pass, but God remains, — 

O'er his eternity he reigns. 

* Farmiiigton at first included the territory of which the towns of Farmington, Berlin, South- 
ington, part of Wolcott, Bristol, Burlington, Avon, and a part of West Hartford are now 
constituted. 

r Allusion to the bone9 which have been thrown up on the banks of the canal, and to other 
remains, indicating Indian cemeteries. 

I Motto of the State of Connecticut. 

13 



98 

VII. POEM.— By Mrs. Emma Willard. 
VIII. PRAYER.— By Rev. D. L. Parmelee. 

IX. HYMN.— By Rev. Royal Robbins. 

Day bright in our annals, when God sped the band 
Of Pilgrims who planted this rude darken'd land; 
Beginning of days, that their course since have run — 
The cycles are finished that bring back the sun. 

Day, day — bright, bright day, 
We hail thy return, while we pour the glad lay. 

How chang'd are the scenes! Where amid the wild gloom, 
The Indian and panther fought each for his room, 
The sunny fields smile, and gay plenty abounds, 
Neat mansions arise, and the church-chant resounds. 

Scenes, scenes — dear, dear scenes, 
What heart but exults o'er these soft-swelling greens ! 

Our stores are here garnered, where God gives us rest, 
Here trained are our children, whom Jesus has blest ; 
Let those whom it likes o'er the earth wildly roam — 
We'll cleave to our fire-sides, our altars, and home. 

Home, home — sweet, sweet home, 
To you let the storms of dissension ne'er come. 

Our sons through all ages, as like to their sires, 
Shall feel the fond passion which country inspires ; 
Truth, knowledge, and freedom, the watch-word be given, 
Those jewels of earth, and those raptures of heaven. 

Heaven, heaven — blest, blest heaven, 
May thine be our home, when from earth we are driven. 

The exercises in the church being concluded, the congregation withdrew to 
the green, to partake of a collation previously provided, in the open air. Apart 
from the other tables, were two very old ones covered with dishes, served up in 
ancient style. After partaking of the collation, and indulging for a while in social 
conversation, the people united in singing the one hundredth Psalm, " Before 
Jehovah's awful throne," &c. to the tune of Old Hundred. Just before the 
Benediction, the following extract of a letter from the Rev. Asa Packard, of Lan- 
caster, Mass. to his grand-son residing in Farmington, was read by Rev. Dr. 
Porter, as illustrating the manners and feelings of ancient times. 

" In 1777, early in January, I was passing through Farmington, returning 
from the army at New York, to my parents at Bridgewater. I was sick. The 



99 

wound I received in battle was not healed ; the ball troubled me, and is still an 
affliction. I could not walk without an arm to lean upon. I could not rise from 
the floor without help, and with assistance, could travel but few miles in a day. 

" On a Sabbath morning, say nine o'clock, snow on the ground, I was in 
Farmington village, leaning on my friend who led me : striking something with 
my foot, I fell. Bursting into tears, I said, I can go no farther ! I will die here 
if I must die ! His counsel and entreaties were lost : I persisted in refusing to 
proceed. 'Well, said he, there is a tavern; we will go in there.' (I see that 
sign in perfect recollection this moment.) No, said I, I will not die in a tavern. 
'You cannot get in at a private house, was his reply.' Standing and leaning 
on him, I looked around upon houses in sight, and selected a neat, snug-looking 
one story house, not painted, standing some ten rods east of the road on a little 
rising ground. There, said I, we will try there. A Mr. Thomas Cowles was 
its owner. We went in. The venerable, aged man, had his great Bible before 
him, on a small table before the fire. His red worsted cap, brown coat and 
small clothes, and his blue stockings, I well remember. I was spokesman. 1 
told my wishes and my sufferings. He said he could not take me in. His 
daughter, who took care of him, was feeble and not able to take additional care. 
I was in tears, (and am now.) Sir, said I, or similar words, my parents are 
living and are reputably situated, and if your son, situated as I am, should make 
such a request of them, as I do of you, they would not turn him away. You 
must let me stay here. About this time, his daughter came in. She was forty 
or fifty years old. What she said, I do not remember, but both consented to 
admit the poor sick boy, and greater kindness than theirs, was never realized 
by a sufferer. How long I was there I cannot recollect ; but I was very ill and 
totally delirious several days. An elderly physician attended me, and when my 
brother went to relieve me, both Mr. Cowles and the doctor refused to take any 
compensation. I wrote Mr. Cowles often, and he answered me, till after my 
ordination. Having a direct conveyance, a little before his death, I sent him 
two books, and wrote in each, 'I was a stranger and ye took me in.' If any of 
his descendants are there, they ought to know the kindness of that worthy ances- 
tor. May I meet him in glory ! He appeared a man of eminent piety.' - 



X. BENEDICTION.— By Rev. Dr. Porter. 



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